Clockwise (1986)

 “It's not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It's the hope."

I was probably still in primary school when I last saw this film, expecting a straightforward comedy that, after all, starred John Cleese. That's not what I got, and I recall being disappointed.

What a difference thirty-five odd years makes.

I'm not, as a rule, one for farces. They run like clockwork; they tend to be masterful exercises in plotting and to showcase superb comic acting but, for me, they tend to be more a thing to admire than to love.

Yet this film, although genuinely funny in a gently facical way and showcasing a bravura performance from John Cleese and lots of fun little appearances from various familiar character actors, has a lot to say beneath the surface humour. Brian Stimpson is a man obsessed with punctuality and propriety who was, we learn, perpetually late in his youth. He has overcome his own flaws through fear of his own weaknesses. I can identify with that, certainly, in my own life.

Yet he's also a man with a slight chipon his shoulder but determinedly ambition. He's the firsty head of a state school to char the Headmasters' Conference, which is dominated by the public school clique that runs far too many things. He knows, deep down, despite his upper middke class lifestyle and respectability, that he will never be as "good" as they are, but he's chairman now. And, with all those evenings at Tory party events, he hopes this may be a step to political success. He can dream.

And yet, alas, not all ambitions can be realised in Thatcher's Britain. Hubris is still a thing. Sois nemesis. Stimpson's arrogance lets him down in the end, ruining his life but bringing him, also, a much-needed momemt of self-realisation and genuine self-awareness, wearing a monhk's robe on the side of a country road.

This is a superblyu crafted and surprisingly deep film. I'm impressed.