The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Colin Smith is a working class boy sent to a borstal for robbing a bakery. The governor notices something: the boy runs very well. The institution is to compete against a wealthy public school and the governor wants to win. He gives Colin privileges, allows him out to train, and treats him as an investment. The day of the race arrives. Tony Richardson directs. Tom Courtenay plays Colin and Michael Redgrave plays the governor. The source is Alan Sillitoe's long story, and he wrote the screenplay too. It belongs to the wave in British cinema called the angry young men. That movement took the working class as the centre of the narrative rather than as scenery, and Richardson is among its best known directors. The method is the flashback. What passes through Colin's mind as he runs appears on screen: his father's death, the television his mother bought with the compensation money, the robbery, the police station. The run is the frame of the whole film. The subject is collaboration. The governor treats Colin well and wants something in return, and the only answer Colin has is to refuse his own victory. The image is black and white and shot on location; the area around Nottingham and the institution itself are filmed with a documentary texture. Who it is for: viewers who like British realist cinema and films built on class. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the hero is cold, and the ending will not satisfy everyone.