| Looks and Smiles | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ken Loach |
| Written by | Barry Hines |
| Produced by | Raymond Day Irving Teitelbaum |
| Starring | Graham Green Carolyn Nicholson |
| Cinematography | Chris Menges |
| Edited by | Stephen Singleton |
| Music by | Marc Wilkinson |
Production companies | Black Lion Films Kestrel Films |
| Distributed by | ITC Entertainment |
Release date |
|
Running time | 104 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Looks and Smiles is a 1981 Britishdrama film directed byKen Loach. It is based on the novel of the same name, written byBarry Hines. The film was entered into the1981 Cannes Film Festival, where Loach won the Young Cinema Award.[1]
In an interview for the bookLoach on Loach, the director said that the title of the film is taken from a line fromAnton Chekhov: "How did girls attract boys when they were young? In the usual way - with looks and smiles."[2]
A disadvantaged young man tries to get by inMargaret Thatcher's England. Writing in his bookThe Cinema of Ken Loach,Jacob Leigh comments: "Looks and Smiles reveals the depression people felt in the industrial North of England in the 1980s; but it is as depressing as Mick's life. ... Loach's characteristic attention to detail renders the film a period piece."[3]
The film was shot in black-and-white entirely on location inSheffield.[3] There is someYorkshire dialect in the film, although not as much as in previous Loach-Hines collaborations such asKes andThe Price of Coal.
A review inThe New York Times gave the film a positive review and praised the acting, but complained about Loach's policy of using the actors' natural accents on the grounds that "a great deal of the dialogue remains unintelligible to the American ear."[4]
A 2016 Guardian article wrote, "Even the most devoted fan found 1981’s Looks & Smiles painfully miserable".[5]
When asked why he was unhappy with the film in an interview forLoach on Loach, Ken Loach said, "It's too lethargic and gently-paced and when I think about it now I want to give it a kick up the arse."[6]
Ken Loach considered the film a failure and turned to making documentaries for several years afterwards,[7] saying that the film failed to "create the outrage in the audience that should have been there".[8] He also considered it "the end of an era" as he avoided long camera shots in subsequent films.[8] In support of the film, it has been held up as one of Ken Loach's film that does not propagate one political view heavily, as opposed toFatherland[9] orLand and Freedom[10]