High Hopes [DVD]

There are a lot of excellent things in this film. The central partnership of Cyril and Shirley is warm and touching - two really nice, interesting and amusing people - and they are beautifully acted by Phil Davis and Ruth Sheen, whose wonderfully expressive face is a delight. The plight of his old Mum, bewildered, negative and not coping, is bitter-sweet, with some rather black humour in the bleakness. The film is often very funny, and some dialogue is sharp and effective. But some things to me don't ring true. The over-the-top middle class couple are not just ghastly, (David Bamber and Lesley Manville, good enough in the roles) they are grotesque and beyond belief, and so particularly is Cyril's hysterical sister. This is the world of 'Abigail's Party', but a shade more extreme and, I think, a step too far. Still, the film is enjoyable and the ending,

which is really a kind of happy ending though not one which comes close to resolving all of the issues raised in the film, is rather poetic and certainly fitting. It's a good film, an enjoyable film, but with its patchy side.

Fine service, however i thought I was ordering the Welsh TV series of High Hopes - my mistake.
Have since found from contacting BBC Wales that High Hopes TV series is not on DVD, which is very sad is this appears to be a fore runner for Gavin & Stacey.

As you expect from a Mike Leigh film, this is primarily a film about ordinary folk, people you can relate to. But not all the characters here have that edgy realism, some are shown as caricatured buffoons and that only serves to add to this comedy about life in Thatcher's Britain.

Cyril is an old-school socialist, resisting any suggestions he ought to set up on his own in order to better himself because to do so would be to turn his back on his personal ideology and become one of those he looks down on. He and Shirley are the main characters in High Hopes and their 'bottom rung' social status is a point of comparison with the other couples in the film. His sister follows the latest trends and aspires to be seen as middle class while on the surface ignoring her dead marriage. And his mother is the last council tenant on a street full of middle class 'invaders' desperate for premium London addresses - her neighbours are shallow and showy; awful hoity-toity types who speak only to impress.

The film manages to show that although Cyril and Shirley's relationship isn't without issues (having a child is a thorny issue), the two are comfortable with each other and the warmth between the two is captured perfectly, they share a lot of intimacy and by that I don't mean scenes of a sexual nature - instead we see them laid together and enjoying shared jokes or chatting and being on the same level as each other - it's a relationship which is established on a solid history together and there's genuine happiness gained from their company. Such companionship is less evident, or even completely absent, in the couples who spend their energy trying to appear as though they are bettering themselves, there's little substance between them. Much of the humour in High Hopes comes from the parodies of the new middle class and the theatrical behaviour as they make great efforts to show off, a perfect example being a moment of mania when Cyril and Shirley fail to be impressed by the "loud" items of paraphernalia in his sister's and she promptly announces in shrill fashion (about her lack of neighbours) "We're detached" - it's a great line!

Needless to say, the performances here are absolutely convincing and Leigh's use of time to develop the characters pays dividends and most of the core characters feel as real as any you'd see in real life. As I've said, that plausibility doesn't extend to the most 'posh' couple who look and sound more like characters from a comedy sketch show, usually it wouldn't feel right in a Mike Leigh film but here it works perfectly and seems to ridicule them and expose the fakery of their behaviour. You identify with all the other characters but you never sympathise with the yuppies next door with their faux laughs and exaggerated RP accent. The extras on the Blu-Ray disk includes a 4 minute interview with Mike Leigh where he accepts criticism of the film including the way that the la-de-da neighbours are portrayed, although the interview is brief, the man has charisma and even just a few minutes feels satisfying. Included too is an old TV piece about Leigh and this film, it's showing its age and again is only a few minutes long but it's insightful and contains quick interviews with the cast and reflections on what it is the film is saying. Other bonus features bundled on this release are cast and crew biographies which are displayed as on-screen text, as are production notes and a synopsis of the film which is written in a pretty humorous way. There's also a still gallery and the original film poster. There's nothing remarkable other than the two pieces on Mike Leigh. The actual picture quality isn't what you expect on Blu-Ray and I don't think there's any obvious improvement over DVD, it's grainy, scratched and looks like it's been shot on cheap equipment but this was never meant to be a slick looking film and the aesthetic is fitting for a piece of work which feels more like real life than a piece of fiction. Having said that though, it looks like this has been produced using a bad source video and I'm certain that a better original must exist - this is a film which should get better treatment.

In a nutshell: As Mike Leigh says himself on one of the supplements, he invites you to "laugh at real life" with this film and it's one of the strongest and most accessible of his features. Most of his films have no real story and instead they open up people's lives for us to view, however this is a great but gentle satire with moments of great humour and manages to say more about Thatcher's Britain than most documentaries would. High Hopes explores what it means to be a socialist in a world which is increasingly capitalist, it's an ideology becoming fossilised by new Capitalist thinking and leads you to wonder how the left-wing beliefs need to change to adapt to a modern society. It also contains the most awkward soirée since Abigail's Party ("just get her a cup of tea!")! This would get 5 stars from me but I am knocking a star off as I feel that the film hasn't been given the Blu-Ray transfer it deserves and looks like it's been reocrded off the telly.