Meantime

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Kevin L It's not his earliest work, but this is still early Leigh in terms of when he started writing & directing with some regularity. There's most all the would-be trademarks and intentions of Leigh's work. The dialogue is very plain spoken and familiar to the actors. The standout acting is built upon characters that feel very lived in; and the ultimately sad and depressed state they fall into that mirrors much of Great Britain at the time. But it's just too endlessly dour and downbeat for me. Leigh would use comic relief more often and skillfully in later films. Here, it's largely left to the mindless skinhead figure Gary Oldman plays. It's an effective affectation, and has its humorous side, but even that gets sad and dark. My friend loved it, but I doubt he'd like later Leigh movies nearly as much. 3.3 stars Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 12/09/24 Full Review Shioka O Story of becoming Skinheads. That's it. I didn't know Tim Roth and Phil Daniels worked as brothers! Great casting. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 11/19/22 Full Review Audience Member Superb British humour, grim - understood by all those young adults that lived & struggled through the Thatcher years great cast from some fine actors Leigh at his best Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member Perfectly articulates a sense of hopelesness and waste and leaves us without a conclusion to the sense of social ennui. In particular the way that Mark and Colin's family bristle with their mother's middle class sister is very well done, a masterclass in expressing class tensions. Elements of self-sabotage could in some ways be read as a criticism of the protagonists, but in the context of Mike Leigh's work I think we can be confident that wasn't what he was aiming for. Bleak. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review michael a It's films like this that should be shown at every school to illustrate exactly what it is that the older generation has given to this country to make it so much better than 40 years ago. It's bleakness and desperation is a testament to how far we have come. You can smell this movie, it's that good. And the score, although jarring, works perfectly. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Mike Leigh's impressive early partially improvised work showcases multiple amazing performances, especially from the central duo, Tim Roth and Phil Daniels as Colin and Mark, two deadbeat brothers in 1980s Thatcher's London, heavily unemployed, suffering from a painful class gap. Even though the film never seems to directly bash the infamously criticized system shown on the screen, Leigh does emphasize the darkness created by said system: the crippling feeling of helplessness in the face of a world doing its best to keep you inside the cage of poverty, all kinds of petty reactions to the abovementioned system like envy and frustration on 'the rich'. Although bleak and pseudo-realistic in nature, Meantime still finds the few beams of light in the blackness, using dark humor and witty observations on the little man, making him (or her) relatable. Pair that with the film's clever lines (I cannot say the word 'script' since one cannot tell what was script and what was improvised) and you'll get a must-watch for anyone interested in the unfiltered tongue-in-cheek social commentary of the 80's and 90's English cinema. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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