Tory Britain stripped bare

Wednesday, August 20, 1997 - 10:00

The Full Monty
Directed by Peter Cattaneo
With Robert Carlyle and Mark Addy
Screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival

Review by Vannessa Hearman

The Full Monty is a film about the human impact of privatisation and welfare cuts in the English county of Sheffield during the Tories' reign. It opens with footage from a promotional film about the town, made in the 1970s, which tells of a prosperous steel-producing town with full employment. Twenty years later, after the closure of the steel industry, the town is in ruins. Steel workers now sit around in job clubs, concoct scams and stand in the dole queue, looking for ways of coping with boredom and feelings of inadequacy.

Gaz (Robert Carlyle) is one of these men. When his wife and her boyfriend prevent him from seeing his son until he pays a prohibitive sum of maintenance, he becomes enraged and desperate for cash. Seeing the adulation the Chippendales — male strippers — generate when they perform in Sheffield, Gaz decides he and his mates could do the same and earn "thousands of quids", whilst winning back a bit of self-esteem.

Sheffield's version of the Chippendales are a motley troupe of pigeon-chested, pot-bellied, middle-aged "ordinary" blokes — "The Full Monty" — trying to master the bump and grind to 1970s' hits like Donna Summers' "Hot Stuff".

The Full Monty belongs to a flourishing genre of film-making primarily based in Britain. It includes films directed by Ken Loach (Raining Stones, Riff Raff) and Mike Leigh (Naked, Secrets and Lies) which expose the underbelly of a Britain hurting after years of Tory rule, of unemployment, destitution and grim hopelessness.

These films capture real-life characters trying to survive day to day, and their determination and aspirations with humour and empathy. The Full Monty explores the social and human cost of government policy, but it does so with a great deal of hilarity from beginning to end. The cast work together well to bring their characters to life. This is a memorable film and deserves to be released widely.