Movie Review – High Hopes

High Hopes (1988)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

To see Mike Leigh’s name credited as the maker behind a movie is to signify something. It means you will be treated to some of the best conversations between very human, grounded characters you’ve ever heard. The story will be focused on the working class, with an even-handed mix of misery and mirth. The whole thing will be very British but not in the nationalistic sense; in the communal sense, British people living quiet lives with moments of drama in them. High Hopes was not Leigh’s first picture. Previously, he directed Bleak Moments (1971) with his second feature, Meantime, but he did not come to theaters until 1983. Because Leigh’s preferred method of working is to allow the actors to improvise dialogue during rehearsal sessions, the filmmaker had trouble getting financial backing. But with High Hopes, Leigh’s career finally kicked off in full, leading to a string of fantastic movies that continue to come out today.

To understand Mike Leigh’s work demands that we know where he came from. His family name is Lieberman informing us of his family’s roots as Russian-Jewish immigrants to the U.K. He’s second generation on his father’s side. His dad was a doctor serving in WWII when Leigh was born. The future filmmaker attended a boys’ school in Manchester, the setting of so much of Leigh’s work. By his adolescence, Leigh was being shaped by a myriad of influences – surrealism, radio comedies, drawing, communism, and cinema. 

University was the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but Leigh quickly found he didn’t enjoy being an actor. Viewing John Cassavetes’s Shadows sparked his true calling to make movies and make them in an independent, improvisational vein. Throughout the 1960s & 70s, Leigh’s work in the theater would lead him to write/direct television melodramas about the working class. The Thatcher era informed much of Leigh’s early cinematic work as he depicted the plight of hard-working British people being ground under the heel of capitalism & the neoliberal order. 

Cyril (Phil Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen) are a loving couple in London’s King’s Cross neighborhood. The film is mainly about their interactions with Cyril’s family – his mother (Edna Dore) is the last holdout on a block quickly gentrified by the wealthy – turned from subsidized housing into luxury abodes. His sister Valerie is desperate to escape her working-class roots, married to a middle-class sleazebag. There are tense interactions with Laetitia and Rupert, the upper-class snobs who live next door to Mother, and the recurrence of a clueless young man from the country who has no idea how things work in London. 

The film’s first half is relatively light while still showing respect for working & working-poor people. Leigh paints a portrait of people getting along, floating on their love for each other rather than the promise of massive consumptive material rewards. Would Cyril & Shirley like more money? Of course, they would, but they don’t see it as a ticket out of their current life but as a means to sustain themselves as they live in defiance of the encroaching scourge of capitalist annihilation. The film’s second half is where hope seems to drain out of the story. Interactions between characters are so unpleasant, but that’s the intent. I especially feel poorly for Cyril’s mother. The actress doesn’t have many lines but perfectly captures the quiet defeat of a life lived constantly under the boot of another. 

The film’s midpoint sees Cyril & Shirley visit the grave of Karl Marx, who’s buried in London’s Highgate Cemetery. This isn’t their first time here. Cyril has become politically disillusioned, seeing Thatcher and her conservative majority absolutely devastate the communities around him. He feels like it’s all been for nothing, but coming here revitalizes him. Shirley points out the large family surrounding Marx in the resting place, reminding us of the central conflict between the couple – she wants kids, and he says the world is too terrible to do such a thing.

My wife and I came to Cyril’s same conclusion; we did so years ago. Finances never felt like enough that we wouldn’t be left scrambling for pennies & little did we know my exhaustion/depression/etc was being affected by autism. Ariana had similar mental health challenges, which we are very confident are connected to ADHD. Cyril & Shirley would have come of age in the 1960s, and twenty years later, they live in a world dramatically different and far more threatening. Ariana and I came of age in the 1990s/2000s. Like all childhoods, we had a rose-colored view of the world. As time marched on, things got worse & worse, or perhaps we just woke up and saw the truth now.

In High Hopes, Leigh explores how class division alienates people from each other. When Mrs. Bender is locked out of her home, she crosses paths with the posh Letitia (Leslie Manville) from next door. The wealthy woman clearly feels the social obligation to help a neighbor in need, but she doesn’t hold back in her class judgments about Mrs. Bender. When Rupert arrives home, they speak about the elderly woman as if she is an animal who can’t understand their disdainful comments. They see her as a human…somewhat, or is it the pity you feel towards a bird with a broken wing, which quickly turns into the hassle of having to help when you have “more important things to do and a place to go to.”

Leigh’s work is rarely about the young idealist in the heat of the moment, fighting for the cause. They are far more often detailing the lives of the true believers whose flames have been snuffed out. His worlds are populated by simple-minded & well-meaning working-class families, broken dreamers, and the most cruel yuppies you could imagine. No one in this mix is happy, though; even those with all the material gain we’re told will improve things. The money pays the bills and fills the fridge; there’s no doubting that. However, it won’t give your life meaning. It can open doors, but you must first want to open them. The monied neighbors in this movie & the desperately cloying Valerie just seem nasty, frantic, and cold at the end of the day.

The most wounded creatures in Leigh’s world are the women. Their roles as mothers are often stifled because capitalism stands in the way. Cyril can’t imagine having children, while Shirley believes they would help add to the humans in the world that make life better. Valerie is an ornament displayed by her husband, who is growing tired of her. Letitia looks into the face of the woman she might become, living in a similar house, likely to outlive her husband. Wouldn’t she hope for a kind neighbor to aid her in a crisis without judgment? Leigh’s saddest characters often think that if they outrun their class roots, they will become something more, and life will get easier. It doesn’t. 

By the end of High Hopes, Cyril is starting to see things from Shirley’s point of view more. They have the room. They would be great parents. Maybe? Like most of Leigh’s work, he’s not interested in tying his films up with a bow and delivering them into our laps. The situations and characters are incredibly relatable, but so are the conclusions. Life doesn’t have happy endings; it just keeps going on, and then, one day, it suddenly stops. There will always be loose ends and unresolved conflicts. It’s the living that interests Leigh, the embrace of waking up daily and doing what you need to make it to the next. Leigh has discovered all the drama one could ever hope for within that space. Our journey with the director is just beginning.