Abortion, alcoholism and lustful adultery

I really like this film. I?ve seen it a couple of times and could quite cheerfully sit through it again and again. It?s a first rate kitchen sink drama with grainy atmospherics in abundance.

Albert Finney is great. He plays a young, world weary factory worker. Cynical and disenchanted with his bosses and elders (and pretty much everyone around him) he?s a sort of spiritual forerunner to ?Trainspotting?s? Mark Renton or Jimmy in ?Quadrophenia?. In fact, a scene in which Finney disapprovingly eyes his father who is spends his evenings gawping zombie-like at the television set is pretty much echoed in ?Quadrophenia?.

Ultimately, Finney finds redemption from his youthful disillusionment in female form ? in this instance the stunningly feline Shirley Ann Field.

Even so, the film is much too gritty to be called a love story.

It closes with a hint that, although Finney and Field will end up together, their lives will not be without complications or unpleasantness and in all likelihood these will be borne of Finney?s vicious streak.

Alcoholism, abortion, and lustful adultery ? those kitchen sink staples ? are explored to a greater or lesser extent.