A Kind of Loving

1962

Action / Drama / Romance

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 93% · 14 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 84% · 250 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.3/10 10 2979 3K

northern england based on novel or book working class black and white kitchen sink realism forced marriage

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Plot summary

As Vic Brown vacillates between infatuation and disinterest for his co-worker Ingrid Rothwell, she finds out that she is pregnant and Vic has to reconcile how he thought his life would go with what life actually has in store for him.

Director

John Schlesinger Photo
John Schlesinger

Top cast

Joe Gladwin Photo
Joe Gladwin as Bus Driver
Alan Bates Photo
Alan Bates as Vic
James Bolam Photo
James Bolam as Jeff
Douglas Livingstone Photo
Douglas Livingstone as Window Cleaner
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
1.02 GB
1200*720
English 2.0
Not Rated
Subtitles
24 fps
1 hr 53 min
Seeds 3
1.89 GB
1792*1072
English 2.0
Not Rated
Subtitles
24 fps
1 hr 53 min
Seeds 3

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by CinemaSerf 7 / 10

I can't say I was ever a great

I can't say I was ever a great fan of Alan Bates, but he's really quite good in this - for the time - almost raunchy romantic drama. He is factory worker "Vic" who takes a bit of a shine to the shy "Ingrid" (June Ritchie) - well, she takes more of a shine to him, actually. What now ensues is a sort top-of-the-bus courtship, a movie, a snog on the beach and then... She becomes pregnant, a shotgun wedding follows and thought the pair do genuinely like one another, it's clear that there's some rather unpleasant writing on the wall. He's an ambitious character. His traditional working class roots are ones he wants to leave behind. His new family status makes him feel trapped and hemmed in. His future somehow snatched away from him. Needless to say, his character changes and that sets him at odds with his new wife - and with her mother (Thora Hird) who lives with them and rarely misses an opportunity to make her presence felt. How long can he tolerate this self-made scenario before something has to give? Bates convinces as his increasingly frustrated persona as does Ritchie whose character finds herself increasingly ostracised from an husband she loves but doesn't understand. Hird features sparingly but actually offers quite a cleverly constructed characterisation of either the interfering mother-in-law or the caring and responsible parent. That all depends on your perspective and though the story is definitely told from that of "Vic", I think John Schlesinger leaves enough ambiguity of loyalty for the audience to deal with. Though there's little graphic here that might have offended in 1962, the subject matter does challenge the ingrained societal approaches to marriage, to choice and to aspiration in quite a potent fashion and presents us here with a story that does take it's time to get going - but then, so do most romances!
Reviewed by simon-vaughan 8 / 10

Wow. What a trip to the past ...

Reviewed by simon-vaughan 8 / 10

Wow. What a trip to the past ...

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.

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