High Hopes (film)

Infobox_Film
name = High Hopes


imdb_id = 0095302
amg_id = 1:22374
writer = Mike Leigh
starring = Philip Davis
Ruth Sheen
Edna Doré
Philip Jackson
director = Mike Leigh
producer = Victor Glynn
Simon Channing-Williams
distributor = Skouras Films (USA release)
released = September 24, 1988
runtime = 112 min
country = United Kingdom
language = English
budget =

"High Hopes" is a 1988 film directed by Mike Leigh, focussing on an extended working-class family living in King's Cross, London and elsewhere.

The film primarily examines Cyril (Philip Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen), a motor-cycle courier and his girlfriend, along with their friends, neighbours, and Cyril's mother and sister. Despite staying true to Leigh's down-at-the-heel, realist style, the film is ultimately a social comedy concerning culture clashes between different classes and belief systems.

Cyril is a strong, old-style socialist, who despairs of his elderly working-class but Tory-voting mum; her new yuppie neighbours (who have purchased what was once a Council house next door); and his social-climbing sister and her crass, car-salesman husband. Cyril and Shirley are portrayed as the most decent characters in the film, despite Cyril's irascibile nature. Theirs is a strong relationship, marred by Cyril's reluctance to have children and his resentment that his cause is destined to be on the losing side in history.