Directed by Mike Leigh • 1984 • United Kingdom
Starring Brid Brennan, Des McAleer, Charles Lawson

The last film Mike Leigh directed for the BBC examines the Troubles in Northern Ireland through the stories of two working-class Belfast families—one Protestant, the other Catholic—both expecting newborn babies over the course of four days in July 1984. Despite the turbulent sociopolitical backdrop, Leigh focuses instead on the small, everyday moments that both connect and separate these four parents-to-be, creating a profoundly human, strikingly naturalistic look at life on both sides of a bitter religious and political divide.