Quadrophenia<\/em>\u2019s Phil Daniels stars as Mark Pollock, an embittered twentysomething who\u2019s a little too smart to have any patience for the patronizing lip service being offered to people in his circumstances, though not quite smart enough to be able to tell when his acting out is counterproductive. In many ways, Mark is like a less-verbal precursor to David Thewlis\u2019s Johnny, the unforgettable protagonist of Leigh\u2019s Naked<\/em>, splenetically opting out of a rat race where he wasn\u2019t welcome anyway. It\u2019s notable that he\u2019s the only character we see venturing on his own outside the circumscribed slums of the council estates, Mark\u2019s mid-movie walk through Trafalgar Square so jarring it\u2019s like we\u2019re visiting not just a different city, but a different planet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A similar unease occurs during the film\u2019s indelible opening sequence, in which the Pollock family is frogmarched through the middle-class suburban home of their Aunt Barbara (regular Leigh collaborator Marion Bailey) and her bank manager husband John (an impossibly young-looking Alfred Molina). The time-honored ritual of showing off the fancy new digs \u2014 I\u2019m particularly taken with Aunt Barbara\u2019s laborious, tacky tea tables \u2014 is deflated by the rest of the family\u2019s sullen indifference. The pleasantries are rushed and dutiful, time together enjoyed by nobody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark tries to look out for his kid brother Colin (Tim Roth), so sullen and socially withdrawn Uncle John assumes he\u2019s \u201cretarded.\u201d (Colin\u2019s condition, like a lot of things in the film, is intentionally unexplained.) The wide-eyed, bespectacled Colin is socially maladroit under the best of circumstances, so embarrassing that his own father (Jeffrey Robert) pretends not to know him while standing in line at the unemployment office. The siblings live practically on top of each other in a tiny room, getting on each other\u2019s last nerve almost as badly as their parents, who exchange nary a pleasant word in the entire 103 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leigh\u2019s movies have always been concerned more with behavior than story, and what passes for a plot in Meantime<\/em> involves Aunt Barbara\u2019s well-meaning, if totally misguided attempt to offer Colin \u201ca job\u201d helping her redecorate her bedroom. It\u2019s a token gesture that sets off all sorts of frissions in the fraught family dynamic, the kind of condescending good deed that never goes unpunished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The director\u2019s unique, character-first working method prioritizes the input of his actors. They start with a blank page and build the roles from scratch with improvisational exercises, after which Leigh goes off and writes the screenplay. (This is why, like a lot of his early films, Meantime<\/em> is credited as \u201cdevised and directed by Mike Leigh.\u201d) It\u2019s similar to the way John Cassavetes worked with his actors, and should not be confused with the modern improv methods employed by the likes of Judd Apatow and Joe Swanberg, where everyone stands around making up a movie while the camera is rolling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Leigh and his actors have so much invested in their creations that it\u2019s impossible for them \u2014 or the film, for that matter \u2014 to take sides. There\u2019s a fascinating, sometimes emotionally frustrating equanimity to Meantime<\/em>, in which arguments and scenes have no clear-cut heroes or villains, people are simply who they are. On the Criterion supplements, a rankled Leigh still sounds sore pointing out that the film was received poorly by leftwing commentators, who felt that he\u2019d bungled an opportunity to make more didactic points. Of course, they went in looking for politics. He made a movie about people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meantime<\/em> is maybe most fondly remembered for the breakthrough appearance of Gary Oldman, who swaggers into the film like a movie star waiting to happen as Coxy, a rambunctious skinhead and toxic role model for young Colin. (Roth tells a story about accidentally breaking a light bulb over Oldman\u2019s head during rehearsal, sending his bloody co-star to the hospital in full neo-Nazi Docs and suspenders, screaming, \u201cFor fuck\u2019s sake, tell them I\u2019m an actor!\u201d) <\/p>\n\n\n\n The title denotes the limbo in which these characters reside without opportunity. The film is chillingly evocative of the entropy and wasted days spent idle, down the pub without purpose or the hope of a better life. Where does all that energy go, all that young, male pent-up aggression?\u00a0 As we see in the case of Coxy \u2014 or in cases all over the internet right now \u2014 it goes nowhere good.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Meantime” is streaming on the Criterion Channel<\/a>, and available on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/meantime2-1024x576.jpeg\")
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