Meantime [1983]

 Often considered the pinnacle of Mike Leigh’s acclaimed work in television, and the first chapter in his searing trilogy foregrounded on Thatcher’s Britain – it was followed by Four Days in July and High Hopes – Meantime presented a blistering portrayal of the economic degradation and existential disillusionment of the working-class during her cruel premiership. Crafted using a combustible mix of anger, despair, irony and cutting humour, the filmmaker’s profound empathy for the disenfranchised and the marginalized shone through above all. An impoverished and dysfunctional blue-collar family of four – middle-aged couple Frank (Jeffrey Robert) and Mavis (Pam Frier), and their two adult sons Mark (Phil Daniels) and Colin (Tim Roth) – who’re living a grubby existence in a shabby, cramped flat in London’s working-class East End, has been hit hard, like numerous others, by recession and widespread unemployment. Consequently, all three men in the family are unemployed, and therefore compelled to depend on the meagre dole distributed by the council office and Mavis’ menial job in order to meet ends. The film’s primary focus was on the two diametrically opposite brothers having a complex love-hate relationship – Mark is cynical, bitter and alienated, while Colin is naïve, gauche and vulnerable – which made it an interesting precursor to Life Is Sweet, which too had featured a similarly complicated relationship between two contrasting sisters. Leigh loved dealing in pointed class juxtapositions, and that manifested through Mavis’s sister Barbara (Marion Bailey) who’s unhappily married to a well-off man (Alfred Molina) and lives in suburban comfort. The marvellously enacted film, which also featured a bare-knuckled turn by Gary Oldman as an unstable skinhead, was filled with gritty locales that brilliantly counterpointed its bleak mood and sardonic tone.

Director: Mike Leigh

Genre: Drama/Family Drama/Social Drama/Black Comedy/Social Satire

Language: English

Country: UK