High Hopes (1988)

Directed by

Mike Leigh

Genre

comedy film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 52m

Rated

PG

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 101 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A working-class couple in 1980s London navigate their lives and relationships. The story follows Cyril, a bike courier, and Shirley, a gardener, as they deal with their family and neighbors. It shows the social and personal tensions between different ways of living and thinking.

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What happens

High Hopes is a 1988 British comedy drama film directed by Mike Leigh, focusing on an extended working-class family living in King's Cross, London, and elsewhere. The film primarily examines Cyril (Philip Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen), a motor-cycle courier and his girlfriend, a gardener, along with their friends, neighbours, and Cyril's mother and sister. Despite staying true to Leigh's down-at-the-heel, realist style, the film is ultimately a social comedy concerning culture clashes between different classes and belief systems. According to the critic Michael Coveney', "As in Meantime, High Hopes contrasts the economic and spiritual conditions of siblings. And in developing some of the themes in Babies Grow Old and Grown-Ups, it presents a brilliantly organised dramatic résumé of attitudes towards parturition and old age." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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