Synopsis
High Hopes (1989) is a British tragicomedy from Mike Leigh, available to watch online on iFILM. In Thatcher-era London, motorcycle courier Cyril and his partner Shirley scrape by and argue about whether to have a child.
Cyril once believed in socialism and now mostly feels worn down; Shirley wants a family but won't push him. Around them Leigh assembles a cross-section of the country: Cyril's status-obsessed sister Valerie and her hollow comforts, the yuppie newcomers buying up the street, and his ageing mother, increasingly lost in her own flat. Her seventieth birthday is the excuse that drags them all into one room. Phil Davis and Ruth Sheen make the couple worth the whole film.
Leigh builds his movies through months of rehearsal and improvisation with the cast, which is why the dialogue lands like something overheard on a bus. The comedy keeps leaking bitterness: this is a portrait of a Britain split between those who climbed and those left behind. Stream High Hopes (1989) online on iFILM.
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