IMDb RATING
7.4/10
5.8K
YOUR RATING
The life of a working class couple living in London and their complicated relationships with other members of the family.The life of a working class couple living in London and their complicated relationships with other members of the family.The life of a working class couple living in London and their complicated relationships with other members of the family.
- Director
- Writer
- Stars
- Awards
- 5 wins & 6 nominations
Phil Davis
- Cyril
- (as Philip Davis)
Aidan Harrington
- Man in Street
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaBefore High Hopes (1988), director Mike Leigh had made Bleak Moments (1971), released in 1971, and Meantime (1983), released in 1983. This gap in his filmography was attributable in part to his process for creating films: When he applied for financial backing, he did not yet have finished scripts, preferring to allow actors, once they were hired, to use improvisation sessions to create the dialogue. As a result, given the absence of a concrete script, many potential financial backers were reluctant to support Leigh's work. For "High Hopes," that spelled doom until the British TV station Channel 4 stepped in and partially funded it. The result is one of the most moving and engaging films of the 1980s and an early masterwork in Leigh's catalog.
- GoofsAfter they come back from the opera, Lætitia sings the aria "La ci darem" to Rupert, which she claims was from the opera they just saw. They proceed to talk about the characters Susanna and Cherubino. However, these characters are from The Marriage of Figaro whereas the aria "La ci darem" is from Don Giovanni.
- Quotes
Rupert Boothe-Braine: Now... what made this country great was a place for everyone, and everyone in his place. And this is my place.
Featured review
A Fully Developed Creative Process.
HIGH HOPES provides most strengths and few weaknesses of its superb director, Mike Leigh, with the former category including his choice of footage from a typically improvisational collection of scenes; avoidance of a formulaic scenario when comparing and contrasting three widely disparate but plot-connected couples, in a Margaret Thatcher administered England; skill in controlling mood adjustment and visual constructs that generally serve to intensify viewer response; and his canny employment of technicians to implement effective staging design. Leigh's bent toward usage of politically charged economic allusions as a referent to class structure and social change leads here to role stereotypes, indeed even caricature, during scenes wherein emphasis is upon parody, as only one of the couples, former Hippies Cyril (Philip Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen), is permitted to display humanity whereas Shirley's brother Martin (Philip Jackson) and his wife Valerie (Heather Tobias), along with the gentrified Booth-Braines (David Bamber and Lesley Manville) are essentially burlesque figures. In her patented persona as an old woman lapsing into dementia, Edna Doré becomes a linchpin about whom the others revolve, with Sheen taking acting honours with her finely nuanced performance as a societal rebel beginning to crave, albeit non-bourgeois, motherhood. Cinematographer Roger Pratt, along with ever inventive Leigh, use closeups to potent effect for a film that would more nearly approach greatness if a hammy lack of restraint from some talented players, although frequently highly comic, would have received closer directoral oversight.
helpful•75
- rsoonsa
- Jan 22, 2005
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Velike nade
- Filming locations
- Stanley Passage, King's Cross, London, England, UK(apartment of Ruth Sheen and Philip Davis)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- £1,800,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,192,322
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $27,964
- Feb 26, 1989
- Gross worldwide
- $1,192,322
- Runtime1 hour 48 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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