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This Sporting Life (1963)

Director: Lindsay Anderson

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From Time Out Film Guide

A reminder that something really was stirring in those days of the British New Wave before it frittered itself away. There's a touch of the cloth-cap poseur about the way this adaptation of David Storey's novel flaunts pubs, tenements and North Country accents, but also real intelligence in its use of rugby league football as a sidelong metaphor for the rat race, and real passion behind its tormented affair between Harris' inarticulately demanding miner/footballer and his dowdily uncomprehending landlady (Roberts), which ultimately acquires the authentic ring of amour fou. Anderson films here with a rare power, compared to which most of his later work is mere petulance.

Author: TM

Time Out Film Guide


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