THE LOVE CHILD
UK, 1987, 101 minutes, Colour.
Peter Capaldi, Sheila Hancock, Percy Herbert, Lesley Sharp, Alexi Sayle.
Directed by Robert Smith.
The Love Child is a small-budget British film, focusing on the Thatcher years, giving a portrait of England, especially, during the 1980s.
The film focuses on a young man played by Peter Capaldi (an actor who also ventured into directing). We see him at work, at home with his gran, struggling to find his way in the world. His grandmother is played by veteran stage and screen star, Sheila Hancock.
The film is an accumulation of detail, a portrait of a young man and his grandmother, glimpses of other characters – all in a somewhat drab England, dominated by Mrs Thatcher’s optimism and her belief that everybody should be able to help themselves.
1.Small-budget British film? Social perspective? Satire? The humanity of the film?
2.The London world, flats and offices, pubs and nightclubs? London in the '80s, Margaret Thatcher's London? A portrait of England in the '80s, memories of its past, hope or not for the future?
3.The musical score, the mood, the transition from the '60s to the '80s?
4.The title and its reference to Dylan, his life, the absent parents? Love and marriage? Crooks and cons? His own reactions and desires?
5.The tone of realism for the film, the establishing of the situations, the characters? The Monty Python-style voices? Toilet and cupboards etc? Elvis and Cliff? The police? The impact of this style?
6.The portrait of Dylan: Dylan and his appearance, presence? At home, with Gran, his needs, talk, meals? The contrast at the office? His relationship with the boss, the other workers? His neatness? Questions of promotion? Jealousy? The toilet? Relaxing at the pub with friends? Bernadette? The pink frogs and his parents? The revelation of his character? Home and clash? Bernadette and the sexual relationship? Cliff and the others, drugs? Drunkenness, jail? His grandfather? The computer and getting the sack? His choices about the crooks? His grandmother and her response, working together? His hopes, change? A symbol of the ordinary, average Londoner?
7.The contrast with his grandmother: her personal strength, her style, manner of talking, her clothes? Stan and the visit? The possibility of marrying - or not? Her love for Dylan and care for him? Her offering him the family tradition? The housing and the flat? Bernadette and the present? The supermarket and the clash? Meals, Maurice and the clash with him? Her curiosity, the money and the detecting? The meal, the trip, the money? Her support of Dylan and the resolution of the problems?
8.Maurice and his absence, 40 years? His return? Reaction, age and success? Reaction to Dylan? The meal and the betting couple? The end?
9.Bernadette, relationship with Dylan? The furniture, her friend, the pub, the bath? The art? Moving? The sexual relationship?
10.The atmosphere of the office: the boss and his smoothness and emphasis on PR? Jobs and people getting the sack? Colin and his homosexuality and reaction to this? The Pakistani and jobs? The girl and her fiance? Life in the office, the details of the workers and their interactions, the hierarchy of the office?
11.Cliff and Elvis, their experience, the bars, drugs, the police?
12.The police and echoes of A Clockwork Orange? Bashings and deaths? Witnesses? The discussions about morals? The police and their reaction to Cliff and his friends? Dylan in jail?
13.The toilet - and the comment?
14.A humorous and human, yet satiric, glimpse of people, society, systems, opportunities, failures and resilience?
