Bleak Moments (1971)

Starring: Anne Raitt, Sarah Stevenson
Directed by Mike Leigh

what kind of mike leigh movie would this be without a good dollop of blubbering?

I once emailed a link to this movie to a guy after a really bad date.  X(

Bleak Moments is, I guess, not exactly a film, rather, I think it was a miniseries made for television.  It addresses poverty and hopelessness stemming from both economic constraints and personal shortcomings.  It's something like the Panic of Needle Park of mid-seventies Britain.

I'm going to go over quickly what I liked about it.

One of the major themes was isolation, how the characters often knowingly chose to isolate themselves, sometimes because it convenient, but also just out of protection, to get away from people they don't like. The two main characters, Sylvia and Hilda are both caretakers of disabled people; Sylvia of her retarded sister, and Hilda of her elderly mother. Obviously this is not extremely fufilling, and yet they seem to have a lot of difficulty in making new attachments. There are a lot of scenes where half of the runtime is filled by silence, all of the characters staring at each other, not sure of what to say. Most awkward of all is Sylvia's boyfriend of sorts Peter, who takes her out on a date to a laughably bad Chinese restaurant, and after spending the entire evening in almost complete silence, doesn't have the sense to drink the gin that Sylvia offers him.

Call me a depressive, call me a pessimist, but I much prefer watching this to some shiny and glamorous interpretation of life, say, like, Alexis Bledel's new flick Post Grad. I mean, watching someone talk that long about obtaining self-fufillment just makes me sick to my stomach. This seems so much more meaningful somehow, definitely much more true to life. I mean, people are awkward, and sexual situations are super-awkward. Most people are homely, aren't fantastically rich, and deal with the same personal stumbling blocks again and again and again.

In the end it comes down to what you want to watch a film for.  Melodramas can be tough, especially the 1970's realistic variety, but at least they're honest.