The world is catching up on me as regards Mike Leigh. He has made some brilliant films and in Naked, High Hopes and Secrets and Lies he has made kitchen sink melodrama as good as anyone in the whole history of cinema.
(A big statement, but one I am happy to argue.)
I would even go as far as saying Naked is the most original film I have ever seen in my whole life - cinema from another planet, rather like Pulp Fiction was and is.
However here he is merely going over old ground. Life in high-rise blocks, dead end jobs and night's down the pub. Exercise seems something best left to others.
In mainland Europe Leigh is treated like royalty because he offers hope of realistic European cinema about real lives. But it is a mirage because few directors have had the luck of sympathetic television to learn their trade in.
While I could live with the downbeat plot, I was not that taken with the three families on display here. Often one note and repeating themselves. People that have nothing really to say and are saying it!
While working class life may be bad it cannot be as bad as portrayed here - and that horrible background cello doesn't help much either. Taxi driver Spall looks in to the middle distance a lot of the time and delivers his dialogue like a speak your weight machine. Sadly some of the support acting is over the top and hysterical - one of Leighs few faults.
To the world audience Mike Leigh is fresh and different, but for me there is too much of this kind of life on Briitish TV. As a previous reviews has noted - the UK is full of people getting-by rather than really living. As overseas visitors often note, London is not a cheap place to live!
As I hinted before, I feel there is a danger that Leigh has been totally exposed and can only start repeating himself.
(A big statement, but one I am happy to argue.)
I would even go as far as saying Naked is the most original film I have ever seen in my whole life - cinema from another planet, rather like Pulp Fiction was and is.
However here he is merely going over old ground. Life in high-rise blocks, dead end jobs and night's down the pub. Exercise seems something best left to others.
In mainland Europe Leigh is treated like royalty because he offers hope of realistic European cinema about real lives. But it is a mirage because few directors have had the luck of sympathetic television to learn their trade in.
While I could live with the downbeat plot, I was not that taken with the three families on display here. Often one note and repeating themselves. People that have nothing really to say and are saying it!
While working class life may be bad it cannot be as bad as portrayed here - and that horrible background cello doesn't help much either. Taxi driver Spall looks in to the middle distance a lot of the time and delivers his dialogue like a speak your weight machine. Sadly some of the support acting is over the top and hysterical - one of Leighs few faults.
To the world audience Mike Leigh is fresh and different, but for me there is too much of this kind of life on Briitish TV. As a previous reviews has noted - the UK is full of people getting-by rather than really living. As overseas visitors often note, London is not a cheap place to live!
As I hinted before, I feel there is a danger that Leigh has been totally exposed and can only start repeating himself.