High hopes

Winner of the International Critics Award, Mike Leigh’s tragi-comedy depicts Great Britain as a divided serfdom. One half of the population is in thrall to Dayglo dreams of social ascent, the other half to dissent and wistful radicalism. In converted slum-lands, yuppies live side by side with the last surviving council tenants, and in stubborn bedsits, the last surviving Marxists hold out, growing unwashed beards with the devotion of scientists. The film’s triumph is the depiction, at once satirical and compassionate, of its two aging Marxists, two lost souls like you and me, who soldier on with their small lives while the large world outside moves inevitably towards eternity or Armageddon.