CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Framescourer I wish I could pin down the secret formula with which Mike Leigh concocts these wonderful bittersweet (sub)urban dramas. This is a political film, where Life Is Sweet might be said to be interpersonal and Naked philosophical. Philip Davis' Cyril, trapped in a vice of modernist gloom and political impotence doesn't want to give his charming, realist partner Shirley (the glorious Ruth Sheen) a baby. However he does feel obliged to try to look after his grizzled mother whose adventures with toffee-nosed neighbours and hideous nouveau-riche relatives change his aspect on the world over the course of the film.Edna Doré as Cyril's Mum is hilariously unchanging as a cliff-face in a hat. Where David Bamber and Lesley Manville as the improbably monikered Boothe-Braines are icky the Philip Jackson and the leopard-print sheathed, Abigail's-party accelerated Heather Tobias are unbearable but pitiable as Cyril's in-laws (it's a strange function of Leigh's films that the repellent characters often have a lifeline to the audience's sympathies). There's also a noticeably well-pitched soundtrack from Andrew Dickinson. 6/10

sign-3 A seemingly quaint period piece that articulates eternal issues. All the characters are so real I wondered if they were based on people I know, as I lived near to kings cross at that time. I now realise these characters are modern archetypes. Did mike Leigh invent the archetypes? The film making itself is so understated that I wondered if I was watching reality TV! The device of the opening character , to lead us into the lives of these characters is a stroke of genius! I always approach Leighs films thinking 'worthy but boring', but time and again he has me crying and laughing and everything in-between. This film will only get better with time.

rsoonsa 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.

russdean This is a magnificent film full of humour, dignity and tragedy. The two most compelling characters are the hirsute courier, Cyril, and his gardener girlfriend Shirley, socialists both, who have an ongoing, symbolic debate about whether to have a baby or not. In the meantime - no pun intended - the courier's mother is dying - tired, losing her short term memory, and lonely. Other important characters include two appalling yuppies - caricatures only if you had your eyes closed in 80s Britain - plus the courier's nouveau riche but working class sister and her misogynistic husband. Karl Marx's sad big head at Highgate cemetery also makes an entry into the film.Mike Leigh is a wonderful talent - long may his film-making continue! Postscript: Great news the film is now available on DVD - see http://www.hopscotchfilms.com.au!