Meantime

AFS Cinema is screening Mike Leigh's Meantime on Wednesday, August 19, at 8 PM. It's part of the 'Paper Cuts' series, which pairs films with a book—in this case, Stuart Hall's The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left, available at Alienated Majesty Books.

Set in Thatcher's England, Meantime is a 1983 drama about two brothers on the dole living in public housing. There's shy Colin, played by a young Tim Roth, and angry Mark, played by Phil Daniels, who starred in Quadrophenia. An upwardly mobile aunt and uncle and a skinhead played by a breakout Gary Oldman offer them competing lifestyles by which to define themselves. The film runs 112 minutes.

Leigh has talked about how he builds his characters from an amalgam of three people he knows, and the Criterion Channel calls him 'the great prickly humanist of British cinema.' If you're not familiar with his work, this is a good place to start—it's a small, grounded look at two brothers just trying to figure out where they fit in a world that doesn't seem to have a place for them.

Tickets are $15 for the evening showing, and there's a $12 matinee available Monday through Friday for shows before 5 PM. AFS MAKE and WATCH members get $4 off, and LOVE and Impact Circle members get in free. AISD educators and local high school and college students get discounts at the box office with a valid school ID. The cinema is at 6406 N I-35 Suite 3100, Austin, TX 78752.