Marx's sad big head at Highgate cemetery also makes an entry into the film.Mike Leigh is a wonderful talent - long may his film-making continue! Postscript: Great news the film is now available on DVD - see http://www.hopscotchfilms.com.au!

everything in-between. This film will only get better with time.

"success stories" a yuppie couple as rank and selfish? Here lower-middle-and-upper crusts are clowns, it is only a matter of levels and angles.Indeed, Leigh never gives us anything to cling to. Nor does he want to present hope that things will change for the better. Take the central couple Shirley and Cyril Philip Davies and Ruth Sheen . Why are they living like squatters in their own tiny flat? Why can they not buy a proper bed they sleep on the floor or look for somewhere better - after all they both work? Apart from the question of a child she wants - he doesn't they both seem happy to live in squalor. In Shirley we at least have someone who cares for other people.The old lady - through which the story is told - is on her last legs as regards living an independent life. The house she lives in has become neglected and the area she lives in no longer contain her type of people. Her neurotic daughter is so wrapped up in her own suburban life that she does seem to realise her mother is at the point of collapse. The scene where she holds a birthday party for her aged mother is agony - not for her confused mother - but for us the viewer.Some of the performances are a little of the top Leigh's films let actors improvise and I could have lived without so much of the melancholy music track that rubs everything in. But this is the only film since One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest that lets humour and tragedy sit side by side without blinking.Director Leigh gets under your skin and takes you places we haven't been on film before - but I am not sure they are places I would want to go on a regular basis. He is a one-off, but I am secretly glad about that.

mumbled Cockney slang or nasal upper-class snobbery, is pitch perfect.The film is essentially a showcase for some wonderfully defined characters: marginalized counterculture Marxists Cyril and Shirley; Cyril's ultra-neurotic middle-class sister and her vulgar salesman husband; an infirm old mum; a pair of callous upscale neighbors; and an odd, occasional houseguest named Wayne. The plotting is furtive: nothing much happens over the course of the film, giving the cast plenty of room to stretch out in their roles. The characters and story lines were created by the entire cast through extensive pre-production rehearsals, but the finished film is remarkably cohesive, with acting so natural it could easily be mistaken for improvisation if it weren't so well written. The result is a film of rare and genuine emotion: it's either the gloomiest comedy ever made or a tragedy with no shortage of laughs.

of the generation who has been forgotten, she is slowly losing her marbles, much to the distaste of her neighbours. And as for Cyril's sister, Valerie, who lives in the social climbing climate of the middle class, she has seemingly to forgotten her roots and family ties, no doubt due to her excessive drinking of cheap champagne and her leeching husband.This film is a brilliant gem of 1980s British cinema, despite its clear socialist values it's cartoonish portrayal of the rich and yuppie somewhat softens the blow of its left wing message , it brings up so many interesting questions in an intelligent manner, portraying all its characters from a variety of angles and political stances, its hard not to like Cyril, but when he criticises a young 'active' Marxist follower for planning to open a market stall, he is shown to be hypocritical.Leigh' doesn't just direct, but also write, and the script is water tight. It is extremely witty, just full of emotion and very down to earth.This film is a very good snap shot of life in a variety of social situations and views in the churning world of the 1980s as the capitalistic London really began to boom. It is a flick that will not doubt have you smiling from cheek to cheek, yet also leave you feeling emotionally vulnerable and self-questioning.

just feels like real life. The actors don't seem to be acting. And you end up pretty hopeful regarding the human condition.

Shirley. Dore's next-door neighbours are a couple of Sloane Rangers with a double-barreled name and if Leigh has a fault it's that he can't help lampooning Valerie and Martin and the snooty neighbours. Valerie is a clone of the awful Beverly in "Abigail's Party" . These are cartoon characters and they don't ring true.However Dore, who does virtually nothing, is quietly magnificent as the mother whose life has evaporated in front of her eyes and Philip Davis and Ruth Sheen are heartbreakingly real as the socialist son and the woman he loves but not enough to give her the child she craves. Indeed, Davis and Sheen give the kind of performances that seem to transcend mere 'acting' and which in a just world would be showered with prizes. Sheen and Dore did win European Film Awards . In fact, everyone is first-rate even the caricatured neighbours and the lamentable Valerie. An uneven work, then, but when Davis and Sheen are on screen it's as good as Leigh gets.