MovieChat Forums > Secrets & Lies (1997) Discussion > Is everyone this miserable in the UK?

Is everyone this miserable in the UK?


Was this film an accurate portrayal of your average Englishperson? Just about everyone in it was miserable. Brenda Blethyn as Cynthia must've set a record for amount of tears cried by a character in a film. England seems like a dreary place full of wretched people. I'm reminded of Ray Winstone's take on the UK after he moves to Spain in the film Sexy Beast:

People say, "Don't you miss it, Gal?" I say, "What, England? Nah. Fu*king place. It's a dump. Don't make me laugh. Grey, grimy, sooty. What a sh*t hole. What a toilet. Every cun* with a long face shuffling about, moaning, all worried. No thanks, not for me."

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Films like this make me want to resign from the human race. Do people really act like this outside of the Jerry Springer Show? God, I hope not.

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Would you think that a nation of 60 million people could exist if everyone was as miserable as characters in a Mike Leigh film? It would be more appropriate to ask if the UK was like this 15 years ago, when the film was shot, but the answer would still be "no." The vast majority of people might have grumbles, but nothing like this, and there wouldn't be a "story" in them.

P.S. "England" is only one geographic part (albeit the largest) of the UK - the terms are not interchangable.

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The question is absurd and indicates a woeful ignorance of both human nature and the nature of drama.

It makes about as much sense as watching a US musical and then asking if everyone in the US goes around singing all day.



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I like your retort.
This is a terrific film about real, unglamorous people and their quite real emotions. I'm American and see the power, beauty and resonance of this film.

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Hortense wasn't miserable.
Monica, on the other hand...





"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

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I often find British films to be gritty and low budget, like other European film making countries, most of our films have a very sharp realism.

This film portrays the life of a lower working class woman who lives in South East London. London in and of itself is very different from the rest of the UK. There is a lot of poverty in many areas of the UK, but there is many affluent and idyllic parts of the UK.

Remember we are still a nation who is evolving from being the world's greatest superpower to a post war European power.

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@stryder9898 I think it's to do with the movie depicting working-class people like Cynthia and Roxanne. I've heard that Precious is grim, so maybe that could be regarded as an American equivalent.

England can't be that dreary, they make great sitcoms.

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The OP's presumption is absurd, but not totally so. There is some truth to it.

People's happiness is only partially related to their actual wealth and health. It is also related to their expectations.

I was born in 1940 in England and obviously too young to have realized the horror of WWII. I grew up in the post-war years, when everything was getting better. Things continued to get better throughout the fifties and sixties and people were generally happy. For most people, whatever they lacked, there was a good chance they could acquire in the future.

From the seventies onwards, things started to sour. England no longer felt a unified nation but a competitive rat-race in which all too many lost out. Things have now deteriorated to the point where there is so much anger and frustration that the nation self-harms (Brexit).

Now we are seeing the same scenario in the US. Instead of Brexit you have Trump. It is the same siege mentality we saw in Apartheid South Africa - "no one likes us but we don't care. *beep* the lot of you, we will do our own thing!". We have seen how that worked out for South Africa, now the citizens of the UK and US will experience more pain heaped on pain.

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Mike Leigh's films are usually pretty miserable. If you want to see a more cheerful British film, try 'saving Grace' (2000) another Brenda Blethyn film, but much happier.

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