I have just finished viewing A Kind of Loving (DVD) and have been inspired to comment here at IMDb. What a touching film with real honesty.

A real intimate portrait of life in the early 60s in England. Displaying the kind of innocence of that time which we now look back on and wryly smile.

But here we have an truth which can only be gained by a cross-section of life at that time. The scenes of the factory work environment, catching public transport, the pubs, even the intimacies of home life.

I'm so glad it was filmed in B&W as it emphasized too well the drear lives that people at that time were enduring. (English weather ... gotta love it.) The whole film seemed to be a spiraling downwards right to the end, until there was that tiny (tiny!) upturn at the end ... so things may not be that bad after all? Personally I reckon the recover of this doomed relationship would be short-lived.

Thora Hird ... what can I say. The only comparable mother in law I can remember was Ethel Merman in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. 10 out of 10 Thora.

And Alan Bates ... what a wonderful performance. Restrained yet so powerful, in a role that would have been so hard to display such strength.

Hire it, buy it ... but make sure you get to see it.

Part of the films which came out in the 1960s from the North of England and labelled kitchen-sink drama, Stan Barstow's novel 'A Kind of Loving' comes to the screen under the sure direction of John Schlesinger.

Alan Bates is Vic Brown, a lad dissatisfied with his lot, who wants to break away from Lancashire to go and see the world, do things, and make something of himself. June Ritchie is Ingrid Rothwell, who after a few fumbles in a bus shelter and a painfully acute quickie traps him into staying put.

Beautifully observed performances from both leads ensure this film is unmissable. As a small Northern tragedy in many ways, it shows a snapshot of a more innocent time and what could easily happen when the heart rules the head. Ingrid's overbearing mother (played by the brilliant Thora Hird) thinks Vic is nowhere near good enough for her daughter - Ingrid is set for better things, not marriage and babies with such as he.

There are lesser characters of interest too - Vic's little brother, his married sister and her husband, his parents, his friends in the local boozer. You can see both the life he wants to escape to and equally why he will stay.

It is also a snapshot of what happens when young love dies. Vic and Ingrid's plight will stay in your mind a long time after you see this perceptive, humorous, and moving film.