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Meantime [1984] [DVD]
 
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Meantime [1984] [DVD]

DVD ~ Marion Bailey
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Meantime [1984] [DVD]
39% buy the item featured on this page:
Meantime [1984] [DVD] 4.5 out of 5 stars (11)
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Product details

  • Actors: Marion Bailey, Tim Roth, Phil Daniels, Pam Ferris, Jeff Robert
  • Directors: Mike Leigh
  • Writers: Mike Leigh
  • Producers: Graham Benson
  • Format: Full Screen, PAL
  • Language English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Prism Leisure
  • DVD Release Date: 22 Aug 2005
  • Run Time: 102 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00004S8JC
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 30,461 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

Meantime, made in 1983, was only Mike Leigh's second film to reach the big screen, though by now he was far from a novice director. Yet 10 years after his first movie, Bleak Moments (1971), he couldn't get funding for a single cinematic feature and was obliged to make films for television. Meantime, first shown on Channel 4, was given a limited theatrical release, heralding his eventual return to the cinema. The title is a double-edged pun. It suggests the waiting-around no-time-in-particular that the characters inhabit, but it's also Leigh's barbed comment on the mean-spirited politics of the Thatcher era, when millions of people were tossed on the scrapheap of unemployment.

Leigh has sometimes been accused of caricaturing and being condescending to his characters, but Meantime is notable for wry compassion in its portrayal of a bunch of no-hopers stuck in their East End limbo. Not a lot happens. Mark (Phil Daniels) and his retarded brother Colin (Tim Roth) hang about the streets and pubs, banter with their skinhead mate Coxy (Gary Oldman), half-heartedly chat up local girls, bicker with their parents. Their aunt Barbara--who bettered herself and moved to the relative poshness of Chigwell--offers Colin a job helping her decorate, but he backs out of it. Nobody's going anywhere much. But the view's not totally forlorn. Leigh leaves us with a brief, unexpected moment of warmth and solidarity between the two brothers.

On the DVD: It's paltry stuff. A so-called "trailer" proves to be a plug for other DVD releases in the same series. Otherwise it's just a scene menu, and English subtitles for the hard of hearing. The early 80s TV-quality images are badly shown up by the DVD's visual acuity. --Philip Kemp



Special Features

4:3 Full Frame
DVD 5
English
English
Region 2
Mono English
Mono
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't stink it out, Frank!, 2 Sep 2001
This review is from: Meantime [VHS] [1984] (VHS Tape)
Me and my best mate at school used to watch this film every lunchtime, and by 1985 we had the dialogue "auswendig". But this film is so much more than dialogue - the cast and sets are pitch perfect, so much so that you can virtually smell them. If you didn't live through Thatchers's England, well, you don't need to, for you now have "Meantime", a film as complex, funny, banal, shallow and profound as life itself. A gift from heaven compared to most films I have seen in the last few years !!
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Depressingly uplifting, 18 Nov 2001
By Michael J. Taylor "mikejamestaylor1973" (East Staffordshire) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Meantime [VHS] [1984] (VHS Tape)
I happened upon this film by chance, and being a big Mike Leigh fan for many years (although not knowing this particular work of his) decided to give it a go and buy it. How glad I am that I did. Utter realism and a clutch of hugely talented future stars made this film such a wonderful commentary on the hopelessness for so many in Thatcher's Britain. Tim Roth steals the show as the inimitably brilliant Colin Pollock (even the name conjures up an image of backwardness) - and if you ever need proof of the raw talents of a great British actor, watch this film back-to-back with Made in Britain. Meantime deserves, even today, its own huge following.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Mike Leigh's best, 13 Feb 2001
By A Customer
Forget "Abigail's Party", "Secrets & Lies", "Nuts In May"...This is the finest work by Mike Leigh. No pretentious moralising, just excellent gritty drama. I think half of the success of this film stems from the fact that all of the characters are so recognisable, each one so well drawn and not a weak performance in the entire cast...On the contrary, every actor is superb. Who could imagine the abrasive, dowdy Mavis become Ma Larkin 10 years later? Or how about a brilliant early appearance from Tim Roth as the simple younger brother to Phil Daniels who also produces an excellent performance.We see Gary Oldman wonderfully unhinged and sadistic as the skinhead Coxy and Alfred Molina is the conservative two-timing exec husband to Marion Bailey...spot on as Aunty Barbara. I'm sure all of us have an Aunty Barbara. "Meantime" is a rough and gritty portrait of a dysfunctional council estate family with very little hope for the future, yet the film refuses to wear down the viewer simply by being very funny. Films don't get much better than this.
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