Popular reviews

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 10

  I wouldn't say that Cyril is a hypocrite, exactly.

  I was told before I watched this that it contained a friend of mine's favorite socialist character in film. It's easy to see why. What Mike Leigh captures here is the compassionate socialist. The core of his socialist ideal is not necessarily economic or political. He talks the talk, but he's not throwing bombs or defecting to the Soviet Union (not that it would have worked out for him in 1988...). He's simply living as best he can in a system that is everything he detests.

  He's snappish. He's got in him a vague anger that is present in his body language, his demeanor. He's sarcastic, though that is, I have…

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★★ 6

  High Hopes, like Meantime before it, can easily be considered a reaction to Thatcher's Britain, but on this rewatch (one of many down the years) one scene suddenly had an extra potency. It's about half hour in and it's when Edna Dore's pensioner has had to take shelter in her gentrified next door neighbour's home. Here, she is hectored appallingly and insensitively by Lesley Manville's yuppie;

  "It's rather a large house for one person don't you agree? You can hardly justify having three bedrooms though can you?"

  "It's my home"

  "Yes it is at the moment I'll grant you that. But I'm not sure it wouldn't be better appreciated by a professional couple or even a family"

  "I've always lived…

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  Review by fran hoepfner ★★★★½ 1

  socialist couple barely getting by acting on kindness and generosity when the whole system has otherwise abandoned it under crippling Thatcherism goals :(

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  Review by spap1 ★★★★½ 6

  what can i say? i don’t think once ounce of me thought that i would dislike this… i went in with the highest expectations, and only had them exceeded. 

  this man can do no wrong. 

  ….

  The world ain’t ever gunna be perfect. 

  isn’t it strange how one person can slice communities in half, remove any essence of pride of self and country, and seemingly place everyone one on opposing ends of a battlefield, tossing them dilapidated armour, or, in some cases, none, and send them to battle, all in order to avoid the baton falling upon themselves? 

  like Meantime, High Hopes is another Mike Leigh portrait of Thatcher-era Britain, however it is one with slightly more optimism than its…

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  Review by Laura ★★★★★ 3

  best best best movie couple. giving without hesitation, in a way that is both practical and loving. never superficial. it’s almost like they don’t even realize they’ve created a refuge, and taking care of someone is second nature. feels like the most real, indisputable way of living. just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

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  Review by Will Steele ★★★★½ 3

  “What made this country great was a place for everyone, and everyone in his place.”

  Such solace and comfort comes from the social diaspora of Mike Leigh’s films for his vision of reality is both antiquated and eternal. The unmistakable state of affairs is both alluring and repulsive with his unflinching vivisection of British class. Every layer budding and blooming to reveal the organic constitution of each level of stratified society. With alarming candour ever endearing by sheer will of persistent altruism, Leigh sculpts these schizophrenic worlds which seem both hopeless and hopeful. Through the cracks shines an incandescent humanism which neither division, dejection nor Thatcher can blight.

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  Review by KYK ★★★★ 1

  working class who don't vote labour are stabbing themselves in the back

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  Review by DallasFrance ★★★★½ 4

  *no plot spoilers*
  Shirley (Ruth Sheen) and Cyril (Phil Davis) are the beating heart at the center of this movie. They’re the nuanced characters that facilitate the actors’ great performances.  The other characters are a different story, though. They’re the closest to caricature I’ve seen in a Mike Leigh film: the nutcase sister with garish clothes and a shrill laugh, the braggart brother-in law with smarmy come-ons, the pretentious neighbor with cucumbers and judgment in her eyes, and the equally pretentious husband with enviable seats at an opera he doesn’t care about.

  These outsized characters pay off in a great moment, though. At the center of this maelstrom is the mother, who’s old, unhappy, and rapidly sliding into dementia. In…

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  Review by fran hoepfner ★★★★½

  happy valentine’s day to all the couples out there

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  Review by Graham ★★★★★ 2

  "This was a different street when I was a kid, before the middle classes took over."

  And so it goes, I've still not met a Mike Leigh film that I've not adored. His careful portrayal of the wants, dreams and dramas of English family life during these changing times had me laughing and crying at the same time.

  In what seems at first like eccentric whimsy stacked with over the top characterizations of London life, High Hopes sees Ruth Sheen's Shirley and Phil Davis's Cyril set the scene for a beautifully warm and cozy couple of hours. As the minutes pass though, these themes transform into something more centered around gentrification of the working class areas of the city, and…

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  Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★★★★½

  Maggie's in the Mud: 80s and 90s British Cinema Project

  Cyril is right. There ain't ever going to be a revolution here.

  If there wasn't one at the height of Thatcherism, there certainly isn't going to be one now. Britain's idea of reform and progress is to opt for the safe centrism of Tony Blair and maybe Keir Starmer sometime in the future. If we're lucky.

  Yeah, if we're lucky. Fucking hell. In a way, centrism has done as much to ruin this sodding country as Thatcherism did. Instead of ripping up what she did and rebuilding, Blair became prime minister as a seamless transition from John Major, which tells you everything you need to know about the former. People…

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  Review by Mario Melendez ★★★★½ 2

  It's nice to see this film again, I enjoyed it more this time compared to three years ago when I met it and found out that it had been directed by Mike Leigh (one of my favorite directors around).

  High Hopes follows the same route that Leigh took since his debut Bleak Moments and would begin to polish it up more calmly in Meantime: To portray as real as possible British society in the form of an experience rather than an event, the one that many have lived in that country and that few understand, that's why I love Leigh because he knows how to reflect the country in his stories, this time the film breaks a little the rules…