Ray & Liz

source: Ray & Liz

Truly awful portrayal of UK dysfunctional homelife. Long tedious shots just reinforce the awfulness.

Ray & Liz 2018 (on film4 ) it's a grim study of a family (2 boys) living in poverty with their parents. I'll say it again It's grim, the parents have little aspiration beyond the day to day existence but for the kids it's about surviving. The film made by the older of the two children, he clearly escaped the rut of poverty. It's immensely watchable in a fly on the wall kind of the way ( watch the film to see what I mean) Essential viewing for fans of social realism. 8/10.

Talented photographer Richard Billingham's stark, witheringly unsentimental autobiographical feature about a grossly dysfunctional northern working class family is a consistently downbeat, sporadically sardonic, frequently fascinating debut that most definitely doesn't spare the rod, nor spoil the child! Watching this unsettling, bravely unfiltered dissection of an increasingly dissolute family 'living' in abject squalor, while wrenching, ultimately proves to be a curiously edifying experience. Sadly, the decades separating the initial release of Ken Loach's no less astringent 'Poor Cow' and 'Ray & Liz' somewhat bluntly suggests that all too little has improved regarding the rudimentary living standards of the many impoverished UK residents currently faltering below the poverty line. 'Ray & Liz' is a claustrophobic Kitchen Sink drama, often lingering with uncomfortable intimacy within their more indelicate nooks and crannies, and yet, empathic cinematographer Daniel Landin's exquisite photography has a painterly, mesmeric quality, drawing you ever deeper into this damaged couple's crepuscular existence.

Definitely not a film for taking your partner on a first date Sadly there are families like this all around Britain. Well done Richard for giving them a voice so authentically. Every actor was brilliant and like all good writing was given time to show their situation. The child actors were amazing .little angels I wanted to wisk away to something better. The parents needed to attend a 'SureStart' centre. I hope this director gets the chance to further his career. A worthy successor to the wonderful Ken Loach.

This film's subject matter is very grim. It's a good piece of filmmaking with some excellent cinematography. But boy! It's so depressing. If you're looking for a feel good film this is not for you. But if you can handle gritty realism you may very well enjoy it.

Dark, upsetting and slightly depressing, brought about by excellent actors, filming and direction. Like the genre of plays like the birthday party, entertaining mr sloane and abigails party it combines tragic with everyday people's lives.

It think it is unfair to think of Ray and Liz as wholly unlikeable because it is a surface level interpretation and it unsympathetic view on the audience's part to what drives the character's negligence. Clearly, they are two deeply flawed characters whose lack of humanity, or negligence, is driven by their constant battle to survive in a very bleak era. There is nothing admirable about these two characters but the film definitely delivers a strong social message about the fate of the vulnerable in a society that ordinarily and continues to look down on them without remorse. In that sense, you begin to understand that Ray and Liz are the way they are because society has treated them cruelly and swept them out of view.

The best image for telling the story of the poorest family.

I've seen many films about the lives of the British working class, ranging from "A Taste Honey" to "Vera Drake." They generally show people with hard lives, who are nevertheless making the best of things and trying to do what's right. This isn't one of those films. The family here is totally dysfunctional and the parents seen to have no interest in their children at all. There's no money to put in the electric meter but plenty of money for a large stash of booze. There are some funny moments, such as when the two boys (about 8 and 14) play a trick on their stupified father one morning. But a more typical example of daily life is when the older boy is leaving the house one day. His mother has no interest in what he's doing or where he's going, but just wants to know if he's coming home that night. The crisis in the plot happens on Guy Fawkes Night, November 5th, when the younger boy goes to a bonfire with his friend (again with no apparent knowledge or interest in his activities by his parents), then decides to sleeps outdoors in a shed and nearly dies from the cold. He's rescued by his friend's mother, and when his parents see him playing in the park with the friend the next day, their only comment is, "The coppers are looking for you." Ultimately his parents are found unfit and the younger boy is placed in a foster home. The father's main concern is that, with one child gone, they lose 25 quid from their housing allowance. When the teenager is told about his brother's placement, his only question to the officers is if he can go to a foster home too. This film is semi-autobiographical, and that teenager was the filmmaker himself. The plot of Ray & Liz is a string of incidents rather than a highly structured whole. It starts with the father, elderly and alone, living in a single room, spending his pension on booze and all his time drinking. The rest of the story is a flashback from there, except at the very end when the mother comes to visit him -- to borrow money. This is a powerful story, but don't watch it expecting a happy ending.