| RATING: | 100% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Amazing and rather excellent companion-piece to The Full Monty in being an end-of-an-era job-redundancy movie. Although the political context is not sketched-out as fully as it could have been, the emotional response to the closing of most UK coal mines in the 1990s is extremely well-dramatized. That these closures were inevitable is far less important than their affect on shattered lower-class communities and, more than this, the cynical way in which they were undertaken.
The basic issue here is one of forming an identity through belonging to a community. The self-respect, the sense of identity and the social-class loyalties this brings with it are carefully balanced by the lack of individual identity that this causes when the happiness of the individual takes a back seat to the success of the community. This is especially so when this is defined as solidarity - even regarding issues (as here) that are lost causes. Does one sacrifice ones personal relationships for the interests and benefits of the group? or is the group defined by its individual members? This is a conversation that has gone on in all places and at all times.
The performances are sterling - particularly the very fetching Tara FITZGERALD and also the prodigiously-talented Pete POSTLETHWAITE. They successfully breathe life into their characters and make-up for any shortfall in their characterizations as scripted. But here it is really the music (provided by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band) that is the true star of this incredible movie; music that is both intellectually and emotionally rousing.
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