Hard Labour

UK 1973, 70 minutes
Dir. Mike Leigh
Genres: Drama

Topics: Shorts.

Feat. Liz Smith, Clifford Kershaw, Polly Hemingway

Aroview: Mike Leigh's first film for the BBC (beginning a series of televised stage plays) introduces some familiar preoccupations: unhappy families, unglamorous scenery, and the British working class milieu. Liz Smith stars as a dissatisfied, middle-aged housewife confined to a loveless marriage.

Includes THE PERMISSIVE SOCIETY (1975, 30 min), a concise vignette of family relationships alongside sexual expectations and tensions, and the following Five Minute Films: THE BIRTH OF THE GOALIE OF THE 2001 F.A. CUP FINAL; OLD CHUMS; PROBATION; A LIGHT SNACK; AFTERNOON.