Distant Voices, Still Lives is a 1988 British film written and directed by Terence Davies as his feature directorial debut.
It's about two decades in the life of a Liverpool working-class family. The time frame starts no later than 1940 (one scene shows Liverpool being bombed by the Germans) and ends no earlier than 1959 (from a date mentioned on a radio broadcast of a horse race). The Beatles are growing up somewhere in town, but they aren't mentioned. Instead the story centers on the Lewis family, and it is told in two halves.
The first part, "Distant Voices", focuses on the 1940s and the family patriarch, brutal, abusive Tommy Lewis (Pete Postlethwaite). Tommy flies into violent rages and brutally abuses his beaten-down wife Nell. Tommy and Nell's three children, Tony, Eileen, and Maisie, grow up traumatized by their father's violence. Eventually, sometime around 1949 or so, Tommy dies.
Part two, "Still Lives", focuses on the 1950s. The Lewises have tried to put their lives back together after Tommy's death, but his presence looms. All three Lewis children get married and have children of their own, and they all try to find a bit of happiness.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Tommy is shown in an early scene whacking Maisie in the back with a broom when she asks to go to a dance. Other than that his abuse of his children seems to be mostly mental and verbal, coming from his bottomless rage.
- Anachronic Order: Just about everything in the second part comes after everything in the first part, but within each half the timeline of the scenes is completely scrambled, in a manner that suggests how one's memory skips around. The early scenes of Tommy's funeral in 1949-ish are followed by a scene of Eileen going out on a date, Eileen getting married, and scenes of a Christmas when the Davies children were little.
- As You Know: There isn't a ton of exposition in this film, but in the opening scene Nellie calls to her son, "Tony, are those two sisters of yours up yet?
- The Atoner: Tommy is bedridden, dying of...something. His desire to atone is expressed in four words, as he looks up at his son: "I was wrong, lad."
- Awful Wedded Life: Most of the marriages in the movie go poorly. Tommy beats his wife, Jingles and Eileen have controlling husbands, and Mickie complains that her own husband is useless when it comes to domestic matters.
- Burger Fool: Eileen and Mickie leave to get new jobs out of town, but their excitement over the new beginning is promptly quashed when they find themselves in humiliating and unglamorous service positions.
- Captivity Harmonica: In one scene Tony, who is in the army, has gotten nabbed by MPs and put in a stockade. He pulls out a harmonica and starts playing.Offscreen guard: Give us a tune, scouse!
- Coming of Age Story: For the Lewis children.
- Domestic Abuse:
- Tommy beats his wife quite badly. In one scene Tommy kicks and punches Nellie to the ground, whereupon the film cuts to a badly bruised Nellie doing the dusting in a dazed, disassociated manner.
- Jingles's husband is extremely controlling and rarely lets her out of the house, which disgusts her friends.
- Gray Rain of Depression: The camera turns to show rain spattering a window, in the hospital where Tony and Maisie's husband George are laid up badly injured after a construction accident.
- Inner Monologue: An early scene shows Eileen, on the morning of her wedding, saying that she misses her dad. The camera focuses on a smiling Maisie (the family is posing for a photo), who thinks "I don't, he was a bastard and I bleedin' hated him." This is followed by a scene of Tommy shouting at Eileen to clean the basement floor and then beating her with a broom when she asks to go to a dance.
- The Musical: The movie is filled with singing, almost from beginning to end. Most of it is people singing in pubs and in family sitting rooms, wakes, wedding and christening parties, but there is song after song after song.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Ends with Mam (Nellie) walking off with Maisie and George from Tony's wedding reception.
- Oop North: The tribulations of a working-class family with a horribly abusive patriarch in the 1940s and 50s.
- Parental Favoritism: Tommy shows a clear preference for Eileen, as he gives both her and her friend money to go to the dance, over Maisie, who has to scrub the floors first, before Tommy throws her money on the floor. Needless to say, Eileen misses their father badly, while Maisie prefers her mother and doesn't miss him at all.
- Parting-Words Regret: When Eileen leaves town for a new job, Tommy childishly refuses to speak to her, even though it's only for a season. An exasperated Eileen yells at him for being so frustrating, then breaks down in tears on the train. Tommy later becomes extremely ill while she's out of town, and dies shortly after.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Mickie, Eileen's best friend, is constantly hamming it up and cracking jokes, has the least troubled marriage of the female characters, and generally acts as a bit of levity in the film.
- Scary Flashlight Face: With candles. Tony is spending the night at his weird grandma's house. After his candle-holding cousins recite a weirdly intense bedtime prayer, Grandma comes into frame. Her face lit from below with candles, spooky Grandma says "If you look in a mirror after midnight, you'll see the devil."
- Screaming Birth: Maisie, when she delivers her daughter Elaine.
- Shout-Out: Eileen and her friend Mickie go to see Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.
- Slice of Life: There really isn't a through-plot to the story. The first part shows the family dealing with their violent, rage-filled father. The second part shows the three children, now grown up, starting lives of their own. It's more a portrait of life among the working class Oop North in a period of great change for Britain.
- Starts with Their Funeral: One of the first scenes shows Tommy in his coffin and then the rest of the family, dressed in black, leaving the home to follow the hearse.
- Two-Act Structure: Divided into two parts of equal length: "Distant Voices", which revolves around the father's role in the family, and "Still Lives", which revolves around his children starting families of their own.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Nell tells her children that she married Tommy because he was kind and a good dancer. Neither of these things remain true in the present day.
- What You Are in the Dark: On Christmas Eve, Tommy expresses love for his children while they're asleep. Unfortunately, he has little affection to them while they're awake. As Terence Davies puts it on the
DVD Commentary track:(A) lot of people have said about this bit that it makes him more human... but my response is always the same. Like all tyrants, he is moved by sentimentality, not by real emotion, 'cos if he really wanted to show his love, he should have said it to them when they were awake.
