I'm not sure this is really a film, more a piece of theatre, preserved. However, the combination of David Storey as writer with Lindsay Anderson as director is certainly intriguing.
Bill Owen and Constance Chapman have been married for forty years, and are waiting for their three sons to join them to celebrate. Andrew, the eldest (Alan Bates), has given up his job as a solicitor to become an artist. Colin (James Bolam) is an executive with a nice car and a lonely life of bachelorhood. And Steven, the baby (Brian Cox), has four children, but is troubled by memories and fancies of the past.
Over all their lives lies the spectre of a dead firstborn, Jamie, talented, and the favourite of his parents, as well as the one to be blamed for a forced alliance with a baby on the way. The celebration day comes to the boil and then fizzes away again with things said and unsaid.
In many ways, not much happens, but when it does, you listen. The performances are superb from all the cast (plus Gabrielle Daye as the nosey next door neighbour). The play leaves you laughing one minute and then shocked and moved the next.
Not entirely successful, then, as cinema - but a valuable record of an intriguing play.
Bill Owen and Constance Chapman have been married for forty years, and are waiting for their three sons to join them to celebrate. Andrew, the eldest (Alan Bates), has given up his job as a solicitor to become an artist. Colin (James Bolam) is an executive with a nice car and a lonely life of bachelorhood. And Steven, the baby (Brian Cox), has four children, but is troubled by memories and fancies of the past.
Over all their lives lies the spectre of a dead firstborn, Jamie, talented, and the favourite of his parents, as well as the one to be blamed for a forced alliance with a baby on the way. The celebration day comes to the boil and then fizzes away again with things said and unsaid.
In many ways, not much happens, but when it does, you listen. The performances are superb from all the cast (plus Gabrielle Daye as the nosey next door neighbour). The play leaves you laughing one minute and then shocked and moved the next.
Not entirely successful, then, as cinema - but a valuable record of an intriguing play.