Directed by:
Mike LeighCinematography:
Roger PrattComposer:
Andrew DicksonCast:
Marion Bailey, Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Phil Daniels, Jeffrey Robert, Eileen Davies, Tilly Vosburgh, Herbert NorvilleVOD (1)
Plots(1)
A slow-burning depiction of economic degradation in Thatcher’s England, Mike Leigh’s Meantime is the culmination of the writer-director’s pioneering work in television. Unemployment is rampant in London’s working-class East End, where a middle-aged couple and their two sons languish in a claustrophobic public-housing flat. As the brothers (Phil Daniels and Tim Roth) grow increasingly disaffected, Leigh punctuates the grinding boredom of their daily existence with tense encounters, including with a priggish aunt (Marion Bailey) who has managed to become middle-class and a blithering skinhead on the verge of psychosis (a scene-stealing Gary Oldman, in his first major role). Informed by Leigh’s now trademark improvisational process and propelled by the lurching rhythms of its Beckett-like dialogue, Meantime is an unrelenting, often blisteringly funny look at life on the dole. (Criterion)
(more)Cast
Marion Bailey
UK
Best movies:
Endeavour (2012) (series)
Agatha Christie: Poirot (1989) (series)
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Tim Roth
UK
Best movies:
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Gary Oldman
UK
Best movies:
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Batman Begins (2005)
Alfred Molina
UK
Best movies:
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Dead Man (1995)
Magnolia (1999)
Phil Daniels
UK
Best movies:
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Endeavour (2012) (series)
The Long Firm (2004) (TV movie)
Jeffrey Robert
Best movies:
Agatha Christie: Poirot (1989) (series)
Meantime (1984) (TV movie)
Eileen Davies
Best movies:
Foyle's War (2002) (series)
Middlemarch (1994) (series)
Vera Drake (2004)
Tilly Vosburgh
UK
Best movies:
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Boy A (2007)
Agatha Christie: Poirot (1989) (series)
Herbert Norville
UK
Best movies:
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Bugsy Malone (1976)