Lunch Hour Review

• 18th Apr 2011

Directed by James Hill and based on a play by John Mortimer, Lunch Hour is the story of a young designer (Shirley Anne Field) and an executive at her workplace (Robert Stephens), as they contemplate beginning an affair. Shot in real time, this one hour film follows the two for the length of that lunch hour as they attempt to consummate their relationship. Released in 1961, Lunch Hour can now been seen as part of the British new wave of filmmaking; the traditional values of the 50s were being challenged by up and coming young artists.

Brief Encounter is a British classic that depicts a young couple who slowly fall in love after meeting at a railway station. Celia Johnson’s character is married, so they agree not to take it further as it would be immoral. French critics at the time viewed the Trevor Howard character as gay given his inability to bed Johnson and the fact that he lives with another man. British film of the 40s and early 50s was constrained by this kind of moral straitjacket very much reflecting the views of the nation as a whole.  Come the mid-50s and the arrival of rock and roll and Elvis Presley, sex began to inhabit a different dimension. Narratives about teenage pregnancy and divorce became hot subjects as a new generation flocked to experience views that reflected their new values. Lunch Hour was one such film.

It features a fantastic lead performance by Field who embodies a new type of female: confident and sexually liberated. Having recently arrived at the wallpaper factory the young designer has caught the eye of an executive. Over the course of the hour they move from a cinema to a hotel room as they try to find some solitude. The room has been booked by Stephens under the lie that Field is his wife and has left the kids with an aunt. As she questions the scenario planned by Stephens she begins to imagine what a possible relationship would entail. We see her mind at play as the two bratty children are utterly horrendous and Stephens’ aunt is nothing short of horrifying.

This hour long drama allows for both realism and fantasy. Considered in relation to Brief Encounter it’s the female character that has changed the most over the 15 years between the two. This time around it’s the female who is single, something that would’ve raised eyebrows a decade earlier. This character is one that has choices to make regarding her personal life. The film doesn’t condemn the notion of an affair; it simply allows her to reject the possible life-long commitment that could be involved in this affair-to-be.

Lunch Hour may appear a little tame to modern audiences but as long as you place it within its own context then it’ll come over as far more radical. Films such as this, point to an entire nation in flux but on the way to changing into a more enlightened society. The girl and boy stand for the youth of that moment that would grow up during the 60s when change within western values was sweeping. The lack of a radical narrative that presently exists within the majority of films produced not only in Hollywood but also the UK could do with a little of what Lunch Hour has. The endless procession of superheroes and CGI nonsense has moved cinema away from a human aspect. A fine example of progress not always moving forward, Lunch Hour stands as a testament to an age where human feelings were still important in narrative cinema.

Aled Jones