Product Details

• Actors: Sandy Ratcliff, Bill Dean, Grace Cave, Malcolm Tierney, Hilary Martin
• Directors: Ken Loach
• Writers: David Mercer
• Producers: Bob Blues, Irving Teitelbaum, Tony Garnett
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• VHS Release Date: March 23, 1999
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 1572522577
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,631 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Prolific director Ken Loach (Ladybird, Ladybird, My Name Is Joe) offers up another of his politically charged and emotionally affecting dramas in this 1971 British film. An emotionally fragile teenage girl (Sandy Ratcliffe) finds herself at the center of a raging tug of war between her strict and unsympathetic parents and the indifferent doctors charged with treating her. Forced by her parents to have an abortion, the girl begins a downward spiral into harrowing schizophrenia made worse by the bureaucratic nightmare of the state-run hospital, which treats her without compassion or regard for her situation, exacerbated by her own family. Loach wrings raw and finely nuanced performances from his cast of actors, portraying people in a working class with no perspective about the vicious cycle in which they find themselves, and no real choices in their own lives. A stinging indictment of a harsh and unfeeling medical establishment, Family Life is yet another unforgettable human drama from Ken Loach. --Robert Lane

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Antidote to Hollywood., December 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Family Life [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A young woman, Janice, in fragile mental health, is browbeaten into having an abortion by her overbearing parents. As her mental state deteriorates and conflict with her parents intensifies, Janice is hospitalised, whence she strikes up a friendship with a male patient. Disapproval from the nursing sister reminds Janice of the way she feels excessively controlled by her parents, and her subsequent rage results in enforced administration of medication. Periods in hospital are punctuated by dead-end jobs and further family conflict. Support from Janice's art-school boyfriend, who encourages independence and rebellion, is viewed with suspicion and disapproval by her parents. Consequent breakdown leaves Janice cutting a pathetic figure, lost both to herself and her enviroment. This enormously powerful, humane and moving film, shot in documentary style, paints a graphic portrait of a young person's descent into schizophrenia, and provides the perfect antidote to the mindless, puerile and irresponsible depiction of the mentally-ill by Hollywood.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tragic story of a mentally disturbed young woman, April 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Family Life [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A vivacious mentally disturbed young woman is driven into a catatonic state. Her actions seemingly embarass her parents, who use this as an excuse to seek a more provincial form of psychiatric treatement than the healing form of therapy she had been receiving. I believe this film is inspired by the English Psychiatrist and fabulous author, R.D. Laing who taught, amongst other things, that craziness was a means to a cure. I saw the film when it first came out as a student at UC Berkeley, and have never forgotten the impact it made on me. A fantastic movie about an equally tragic tale of personal defeat at the hands of a collusion between a pair of uncaring parents and the mental health industry.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and very disturbing, December 3, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Family Life [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I was stunned by this movie. The clarity with which Loach shows Janice's plight is heroic. I felt myself hating and wanting to hurt her parents for doggedly draining any spark of life out of their daughter and then wondering if her parents really were to blame. And if they're not, then who is? The documentary style of the film was very compelling and I later looked up the actors' names on the Internet to verify that they really were actors. I'm not an expert but I certainly hope that people who are diagnosed as "mentally ill" today are treated with more intelligence and respect.