RUN!

I came to watch "The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner" because the main character in one of my favorite young adult books of all time, "The Handsome Man" by Elissa Haden Guest, mentions it as one of her favorite movies. I looked it up on Netflix recently and decided to see it. I already knew what would happen in the end as the character in the book describes in great detail Colin's ultimate defiance against the headmaster of his reformatory school but that was exactly what made me want to see it.
Tom Courtenay plays Colin Smith, the oldest son of four in a working class British family whose father has just passed away slowly and in great pain. Colin, like many fatherless young men in working class families can't seem to settle down quietly and assimilate himself into the drones of society. Along with his pal, he participates in petty theft like stealing money and cars for joy rides but can't stand the thought of getting a job. This not because he can't handle responsibility but because of how he sees what laboring work has done to his father. These crimes land him in a reformatory where the headmaster, seeing his exceptional talent in sports and in particular running, starts to favor him and train him to win the medal in long distance running against a fancy boys private school.
After his father's death Colin's mother collects his life insurance and goes out and spends it on all kinds of fancy new things for the house and her children. Colin won't take any of it and when his mother finally forces him to take a few quid which she stuffs in his shirt pocket while they watch their brand new television set, he goes into his father's old room and silently burns the money. This is one of the most powerful, most defiant scenes in the film.
Later on you see him spending money on one of the only things which really does matter to him when he and his friend take their girlfriends up to the country and to the beach. They experience that very familiar childlike freedom that comes from vacationing not not only from the usual oppressive surroundings of poor working class life but also from the oppressive thoughts of aimlessness and the inevitable death of the imagination to be traded in for low wages and never enough to go around. There's an obvious dark cloud that looms over them when they have to get ready to return to such a bleak reality.
I won't give away what happens in the end but I will say that watching it and observing the split reactions within myself, I can see why society is the way it is. Not that I was clueless before watching this but film gives us such a great opportunity to be exposed to different perspectives and interpretations of working classes, middle classes and royalty alike. "The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner" in it's stark grey palette and Tom Courtenay's very human portrayal achieve this to a compelling degree.