The Long Day Closes

Star Review

To borrow a phrase from Preston Sturges, the long-awaited release of Terence Davies’s masterpiece is ‘Christmas in July’. The film is a glorious, exultant hymn to the cinema that doubles as a coming of age drama, hinging on the sexual awakening of Davies’ 11-year-old screen self, Bud. Wracked with guilt at his homosexuality, brutalised at school and trapped within the drabness of 1950s Liverpool, Bud finds solace and release in the movies and music of the period, which provide the soundtrack to Davies’ meticulously constructed film. At times the film itself offers that same escapism, carrying the viewer on wings. Those fantasy sequences and moments of unfettered joy are mixed with stretches of loneliness and misery. It’s that meshing of melancholia and magic that makes The Long Day Closes something unique, as Davies delivers one emotional wallop after another. This is one of the finest films in British post-war cinema.

Rick Burin on 7th February 2008

View all 8 of Rick Burin’s reviews

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Film Description

A beautiful, rewarding film showing the childhood of Bud, a Liverpudlian schoolboy in 1955. Plucked from his cosy home when he is sent to his new Catholic school, the film looks at his loneliness as teachers and pupils pick on him and his increasing isolation at home as he hovers between childhood and adolescence. His beloved film idols and screen stories keep him company in his imagination but in the real world he feels increasingly like a misfit.

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DVD Extras

• Full Feature commentary by Terence Davies and DoP Mick Coulter
• On set interview with production designer Christopher Hobbs
• Behind the scenes footage of Terence Davies directing
• Fully illustrated booklet
• Fully uncompressed audio.

Film Details

Cast

Leigh McCormack, Nicholas Lamont, Tina Malone, Ayse Owens, Anthony Watson, Jimmy Wilde

Technical Details