Hard Labour looks suspiciously like slice-of-life, but not far into this drama of an older working-class woman we know that Leigh's hyperrealism is light-years away from British kitchen-sink. Here is a film in which people seem to be virtually drowning in real-life atmosphere. Mrs. Thornley is a constant wife-constantly dusting, polishing, rubbing, frying, and, when alone, sighing. When she's not doing it for her own family, she's doing it for a living. People want to like Mrs. Thornley-anyway, they like to sit around and watch her work-but Liz Smith portrays a woman so consumed by guilt, there is not much left to like. Leigh refracts her degradation through others-Mr. Thornley's pub bombast, his hairy back as she massages it; daughter Ann's encounter with an abortionist-and the film offers an intimate thumbnail sketch of labor relations that says a great deal indeed. But it all comes back to Mrs. Thornley and her moment of truth in a confessional, spoken to a bored and broken priest. This is quintessential Leigh: a small, earth-shattering revelation, after which nothing changes.