By now, it is pretty obvious that Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best actors ever. Indeed, he has recently won his 3rd Academy award for the Best actor for his awesome performance in ‘Lincoln’. However, I often wonder if the people raving about him have actually seen his older movies. Anyway, Day-Lewis basically gave here his breakthrough performance and even though this movie is nowadays pretty much forgotten, it is actually really good. The awesome thing, which was also pointed out by the great late Roger Ebert, is that the same year Daniel Day-Lewis also showed up in ‘A Room with a View’, another heralded movie released in 1985. The most striking thing is that those two roles were completely different (a street punk in 80’s UK and a repressed snobbish fellow in turn-of-the-twentieth-century England) and it was really something to see a complete unknown bursting into the scene with such a wide range, becoming right away a major player. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, it was actually supposed to be made for TV but was eventually released theatrically and became Stephen Frears’ first international success. Indeed, I thought it was a very interesting drama, dealing with various social issues but it was also an original and refreshing romance taking place in 80’s UK when Thatcher was Prime Minister, a rather grim and not really economic flourishing time. To conclude, I really liked this flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.
8/10