Meantime

Meantime (1983) is a Mike Leigh television film you can watch online on iFILM. In Thatcher's Britain, an East End family scrapes by on the dole, trudging to the unemployment office month after month.

Only the mother holds a job. The father and his two grown sons drift between the telly and the pub. Shy, beaten-down Colin (Tim Roth) and his mouthy brother Mark (Phil Daniels) snap at each other in a cramped council flat, while their well-off aunt drops in to flaunt a comfort that rings hollow. Hanging around the estate is a shaven-headed troublemaker called Coxy — one of Gary Oldman's earliest roles.

Leigh built the script his usual way, through months of rehearsal and actor improvisation, which is why every exchange sounds overheard rather than written. There's barely a plot, just the precise tedium of having nowhere to be. Catching Roth and Oldman before the fame is reason enough on its own. Stream Meantime online on iFILM.