Another wonderfully crafted dissection of class in contemporary Britain. A wry comedy, High Hopes once again centres on a couple and their wider family, here that of Shirley and Cyril, played with relish by Ruth Sheen and Phil Davis. Living in London, they have to negotiate the forthcoming 70th birthday of Cyril’s mother, Shirley’s desire to have a child, the gentrification of their neighbourhood, and the arrival of that particularly 1980s character, the yuppie.
At its core the film explores the idea of inertia or action against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world that has the potential to leave people behind.
The film won the Critics’ Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1988.
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