Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

rowmorg Mike Leigh is always good value at the low-budget end, appealing to lefties and loonies alike. It's interesting how this picture has dated in the 21 years since 1988. The main couple, hash-smoking drop-outs Cyril (Philip Davis) and Shirley (the charming Ruth Sheen) both have proper jobs they can live on, for example, instead of half-starving on three. They are glad-handed with strangers, something else that has been eroded. On the other hand, Cyril's elderly mum (Edna Doré) is depicted having little or no social services, which paradoxically would probably not apply today. There are no immigrants or brown faces in the picture, which now looks very strange. Given these changes, the picture takes a round swipe at the Yuppies of the 80s, who brashly moved into lower-class areas and gentrified them. The gulf between Mum's people and her neighbours (Lesley Manville & David Bamber) is deep and wide, and still prevails on the tight little island of Albion. It all comes out when Cyril's social-climbing sister's hysterical laughter turns into tears of misery, frustration and defeat: a fine filmic moment. Definitely worth a look for social comedy fans.

Framescourer I wish I could pin down the secret formula with which Mike Leigh concocts these wonderful bittersweet (sub)urban dramas. This is a political film, where Life Is Sweet might be said to be interpersonal and Naked philosophical. Philip Davis' Cyril, trapped in a vice of modernist gloom and political impotence doesn't want to give his charming, realist partner Shirley (the glorious Ruth Sheen) a baby. However he does feel obliged to try to look after his grizzled mother whose adventures with toffee-nosed neighbours and hideous nouveau-riche relatives change his aspect on the world over the course of the film.Edna Doré as Cyril's Mum is hilariously unchanging as a cliff-face in a hat. Where David Bamber and Lesley Manville as the improbably monikered Boothe-Braines are icky the Philip Jackson and the leopard-print sheathed, Abigail's-party accelerated Heather Tobias are unbearable but pitiable as Cyril's in-laws (it's a strange function of Leigh's films that the repellent characters often have a lifeline to the audience's sympathies). There's also a noticeably well-pitched soundtrack from Andrew Dickinson. 6/10

rsoonsa HIGH HOPES provides most strengths and few weaknesses of its superb director, Mike Leigh, with the former category including his choice of footage from a typically improvisational collection of scenes; avoidance of a formulaic scenario when comparing and contrasting three widely disparate but plot-connected couples, in a Margaret Thatcher administered England; skill in controlling mood adjustment and visual constructs that generally serve to intensify viewer response; and his canny employment of technicians to implement effective staging design. Leigh's bent toward usage of politically charged economic allusions as a referent to class structure and social change leads here to role stereotypes, indeed even caricature, during scenes wherein emphasis is upon parody, as only one of the couples, former Hippies Cyril (Philip Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen), is permitted to display humanity whereas Shirley's brother Martin (Philip Jackson) and his wife Valerie (Heather Tobias), along with the gentrified Booth-Braines (David Bamber and Lesley Manville) are essentially burlesque figures. In her patented persona as an old woman lapsing into dementia, Edna Doré becomes a linchpin about whom the others revolve, with Sheen taking acting honours with her finely nuanced performance as a societal rebel beginning to crave, albeit non-bourgeois, motherhood. Cinematographer Roger Pratt, along with ever inventive Leigh, use closeups to potent effect for a film that would more nearly approach greatness if a hammy lack of restraint from some talented players, although frequently highly comic, would have received closer directoral oversight.

davidjack The paragraph describing this film said it was about a group of people who come together when Mum locks herself out. This is misleading as that is only a small part of the film , there is much more to it than that, I saw this film as part of a Mike Leigh feature on TV.I straight away recognised Philip Davis who also stared in Mike Leigh's 'Grown Ups' even though it was 20 years earlier that I had seen that. He looked very similar but his character, Cyril was much better tempered than Dick had been. Cyril and his partner Shirley are the only ones who seem to care about poor old Mum. They are also kind hearted enough to help out a stranger who was lost and confused. Her other daughter Valarie appears to care more about her dog and her own life. The toffee nosed couple next door would rather leave the poor old women standing out in the cold when she locks herself out and don't want anyone to get in the way of their life. This film lets us see that having money doesn't always mean happiness. Cyril and Shirley are much more contented than their richer neighbours and sister. They are also much less selfish. I would rather have them any day