High Hopes (1988)

The life of a working class couple living in London and their complicated relationships with other members of the family.

Director:

Mike Leigh

Writer:

Mike Leigh

Stars:

Phil Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré

5 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Phil Davis	...	Cyril (as Philip Davis)
Ruth Sheen	...	Shirley
Edna Doré	...	Mrs Bender
Philip Jackson	...	Martin
Heather Tobias	...	Valerie
Lesley Manville	...	Lætitia
David Bamber	...	Rupert
Jason Watkins	...	Wayne
Judith Scott	...	Suzi
Cheryl Prime	...	Martin's Girlfriend
Diane-Louise Jordan	...	Chemist Shop Assistant
Linda Beckett	...	Receptionist
Ali	...	Baby

Storyline

Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.

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Plot Keywords:

drinking champagne in a bath | elderly woman | adultery | liberal | neighbor | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

24 February 1989 (USA)

Also Known As:

Belle speranze

Filming Locations:

Broadgate, London, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

£1,800,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$1,192,322

Company Credits

Production Co:

British Screen Productions, Channel Four Films, Portman Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Rupert Boothe-Braine: Now... what made this country great was a place for everyone, and everyone in his place. And this is my place.

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Connections

Referenced in The Adam and Joe Show: Episode #1.3 (1996)

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Soundtracks

Cosi fan tutte
(uncredited)
Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performed by The Wiener Philharmoniker
Decca 4171851

User Reviews

A Fully Developed Creative Process.

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.