England,
1980, 90 min
Shown in 1986
CREDITS
- dir
-
Mike Leigh
- prod
-
Louis Marks
- cam
-
Remi Adefarasin
- cast
-
Philip Davis, Lesley Manville, Sam Kelly, Lindsay Duncan, Brenda Blethyn, Janine Duvitski
- source
-
BBC-TV, London
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Part of the Discovering Mike Leigh program. Mike Leigh in person.
OTHER
Dick and Mandy are young marrieds settling into their first row-house while their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Butcher, are old hands at the marriage game. Dick and Mandy want a baby but instead get Mandy’s ubiquitous older sister Gloria, whose normality has reached critical mass and who is now looking for a safe place to explode into babbling idiocy. Grown Ups is a surprisingly funny film of postures and squints which build to a ravaging climax in the upstairs hallway, just outside the loo. It has the look of nausea, yet it is a kind film, an almost loving film.
—Judy Bloch
FACTOID #95
Later to find fame with the amnesia-tinged film noir update Memento, British director Christopher Nolan was nominated for the SKYY Prize in 1998 for his first feature Following. Nolan shot the film about a writer who stalks strangers, on weekends over the course of a year on a budget of $6,000.
