| High Hopes | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Mike Leigh |
| Written by | Mike Leigh |
| Produced by | Victor Glynn Simon Channing-Williams |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Roger Pratt |
| Edited by | Jon Gregory |
| Music by | Andrew Dickson |
| Distributed by | Palace Pictures[1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 112 min |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £1.28 million[2] |
| Box office | $1.1 million[3] |
High Hopes is a 1988 British comedy drama film directed by Mike Leigh, focusing on an extended working-class family living in King's Cross, London, and elsewhere.
The film primarily examines Cyril (Philip Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen), a motor-cycle courier and his girlfriend, along with their friends, neighbours, and Cyril's mother and sister.
Despite staying true to Leigh's down-at-the-heel, realist style, the film is ultimately a social comedy concerning culture clashes between different classes and belief systems. According to the critic Michael Coveney', "As in Meantime, High Hopes contrasts the economic and spiritual conditions of siblings. And in developing some of the themes in Babies Grow Old and Grown-Ups, it presents a brilliantly organised dramatic résumé of attitudes towards parturition and old age."[4]
- ^ "High Hopes (1988)". BBFC. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
- ^ "Back to the Future: The Fall and Rise of the British Film Industry in the 1980s - An Information Briefing" (PDF). British Film Institute. 2005. p. 24.
- ^ "High Hopes (1989) - Box Office Mojo". boxofficemojo.com.
- ^ Coveney 1996, p. 189.