Movie Review – Meantime

Meantime (1983)
Written & Directed by Mike Leigh

When I was younger and saw a Mike Leigh movie, I didn’t understand it. I was very much into certain kinds of art-house cinema that were more heightened in the stylistics, and the quirky working-class tone of Leigh’s work was confounding. Now, in my early 40s, I find Leigh to be brilliant. He understands the class divide and how ordinary people are pitted against each other better than almost any other director alive. Unsurprisingly, Leigh holds up Yasujirō Ozu’s slice-of-life domestic films as a chief inspiration. Leigh adds his British flair to the characters’ affectations, but the stories are very grounded, focused on the travails of working people attempting to make their way through an increasingly hostile world.

Told in a series of connected episodes, Meantime focuses on the Pollock family. They are working class and live in a flat in an East End tower block. As the United Kingdom’s economy is ravaged by the Thatcher-induced recession, the family struggles to keep afloat. Mark (Phil Daniels) is the older of the two sons, brash & outspoken; he used to hang out with the skinheads and tries to keep his distance now. Colin (Tom Roth) is shy to the point of neurosis, likely cognitively disabled, and yearns to be accepted by others. Colin has a crush on Hayley (Tilly Vosburgh), but she likes Coxy (Gary Oldman), an impulsive skinhead who likely has developmental disabilities. The boys’ maternal aunt Barbara (Marion Bailey), lives with her husband (Alfred Molina) in the suburb of Chigwell, where her life is markedly more comfortable than the rest of the family. Throughout the film, these people clash and argue, never really finding a solution but eventually learning to understand each other better.

I found this film incredible, and it reignited my interest in Leigh’s early work. I’d like to do a film series in 2024. The inspiration for this film came from a time when Leigh was listening to the radio and heard a report about two brothers who had committed joint suicide due to chronic unemployment. Instead of making an anti-Thatcher polemic, the director, who despised that prime minister, focused on the characters’ humanity rather than becoming didactic about politics. That was the right move because it helped focus on the lives lived rather than the granular policy. By showing the effects of the policy, you build empathy with the characters and, in turn, cause people to begin to critique the policy and other contradictions in society.

There’s a wonderful scene early on when the father, Mark, and Colin go to the welfare office to sign on. Each man is an adult and therefore expected to adequately represent themselves. Colin’s demeanor tests his father’s patience, who tries to push in front of the line while Colin looks over the paperwork he’s been given. The welfare office worker admonishes the father, standing up for the man’s son while he looks down on him. She treats Colin like any other person, giving him respect & dignity. I really liked that scene because, all too often, the introverted and intellectually disabled are pushed around. After all, our society casually views them as non-people. Allowing them their own space in line isn’t needed because they “aren’t really a person.”

Because this family, like so many others, has had nothing but their work to define them, when they lose the ability to labor, it causes them to lose their identity. Humans want to contribute to the collective; it’s in our DNA; we want to know we matter in the places we live. When you remove that, you drive people towards nihilism, anger, and ultimately the atomization of any possible solidarity. It’s like being the living dead, in a way. Life is drained of color, and relationships become conflicts at the drop of a hat. 

I greatly appreciate Leigh making all his characters so grating and potentially unlikeable. The title takes on multiple meanings. Meantime can be this pause from labor, an aside from life as it keeps rushing by. It’s also reflective of the way the characters treat each other. It’s a time of being cruel to one another, watching solidarity go down the drain. This helps us understand why such toxic but collective ideologies as white supremacy flourishes during these economic downturns. Colin feels disconnected from his parents and brother, and Hayley is impressed with Coxy. If Colin can be more like Coxy, he might get Hayley and be loved. Aunt Barbara has a lot of well-meaning sympathy for Colin and puts together a painting job she wants to pay Colin for at her house. It’s a gesture to try and give him something, but it raises the anger of Mark. How we read Mark’s reaction is up to us. He could be jealous of his brother being tossed work while he struggles. He could also feel like Colin is being infantilized, given busy work that doesn’t respect the dignity of his younger brother’s labor. 

Leigh firmly believes that people are ultimately good, they can be abrasive & argumentative, but they aren’t evil. The true evil in the world are institutions run by the greedy who exploit the ordinary person. They create circumstances that artificially devalue labor to maximize profits. They dismantle public programs set up to help those in need and then claim the devastation of these programs as proof that the government doesn’t work. Leigh is painfully honest, but that produces a poignant beauty, a reflection on the tragic moments of our quiet lives, how admirably we keep rising every morning trying to make something of the life we have. 

If you are concerned with movie plots, you will find little here. Characters appear intermittently throughout the picture. It’s not about hitting plot points. It’s about the conversations, the quiet moments, the solemnity of a look through teary eyes. Even though you might not want to spend all day in the Pollock home, we end the film feeling love for them, hoping life gets better, and wanting to see them have one success someday. It may never come, but in the persistence of people to live, to try and help each other, there is hope that a better day may happen.