Family Life

Janice's conservative parents force her into an abortion and her mental health collapses quickly afterwards. The film follows her entry into the hospital system and the treatment she receives there with almost documentary coldness. Ken Loach is filming this story for the second time, having directed David Mercer's television play In Two Minds in 1967. This is the feature version. The person behind it was producer Tony Garnett, drawing on both the work of psychiatrist R. D. Laing and his own family's experience of mental illness. He pushed it through despite initial reluctance from Mercer and Loach. The budget was 180,000 pounds, split evenly between the National Film Finance Corporation and Nat Cohen's Anglo-EMI. The cast mixes professionals with non-actors: the mother was a suburban housewife and the psychiatrist an actual doctor. It failed commercially in Britain and found an audience in France, where Laing's ideas were popular. Critics praised the documentary manner and the emotional force, while some found its anti-psychiatry thesis debatable. It won several prizes at Berlin in 1972 and was nominated for Best Film at the 1973 BAFTAs. It cost Loach heavily: he could not make another feature for years afterwards. Who it is for: viewers interested in the anti-psychiatry argument and seventies British social cinema. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a balanced view. The film indicts the institution and the family at once and gives the medical side no defence.