This is another in several teleplays Mike Leigh devised and directed for the BBC series 'Play for Today'. He contributed the justifiably celebrated two classics Nuts in May and Abigail's Party to this format. The Kiss of Death isn't in the same league as either of those two to be fair but it's still a pretty interesting bit of work. Like a few other Leigh films it doesn't really have a plot and is more a slice of life where little actually happens. It focuses on an undertaker's assistant from a northern British town. He is a social misfit who is matched up with a girl who works in a shoe shop. They embark on a relationship of sorts.
The presentation goes for extreme realism, characterised by the dreary and mundane everyday events that typify the lives of the small cast. What makes it work mostly is in the believable acting performances, particularly from David Threlfall who plays the central character. He would go onto considerable small-screen fame twenty-five years later as the character Frank Gallagher from the TV series 'Shameless'. He's very good here as a strange character who is partly a gibbering half-wit and partly aloof from the everyday trivialities that others engage in. The film itself is a low-key yet engaging and should interest fans of Leigh.
The presentation goes for extreme realism, characterised by the dreary and mundane everyday events that typify the lives of the small cast. What makes it work mostly is in the believable acting performances, particularly from David Threlfall who plays the central character. He would go onto considerable small-screen fame twenty-five years later as the character Frank Gallagher from the TV series 'Shameless'. He's very good here as a strange character who is partly a gibbering half-wit and partly aloof from the everyday trivialities that others engage in. The film itself is a low-key yet engaging and should interest fans of Leigh.