Meantime (1983) poster
1983 · drama · british

Meantime

Directed by Mike Leigh1h 47m1983
ElsewhereIMDb7.25kRT90%Metacritic69TMDB6.7107
  • sombre
  • measured
  • bleak
  • intimate
Movie DNA

Sombre, measured, measured drama / british, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.

Our read · Meantime (1983) reads as a sombre, measured, grounded drama · british entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Where to watch
All options on JustWatch

Availability in the UK · via JustWatch

More info & search links
Fingerprint

The shape of Meantime

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want raw funny-sad slice of Thatcher-era working class London life.

ends bittersweetit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 15attention 3/5earns its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightYou want plot momentum or polished characters tonight.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself