I'm always thrilled to stumble across a Mike Leigh film I haven't yet seen, as I did last week with Who's Who (1978) at Boîte Noire. Among the rather twisted train wrecks populating this film are a dowdy middle-aged couple with twin obsessions. He's focused on the royals and Brits of authority in a manner only Leigh could capture, busy showing off official letters he's received from various royals as well as one then-new-to-the-scene Margaret Thatcher. Meanwhile, wifey hangs on every word of Cat Fancy magazine, tending to a small army of felines.

Throughout, a group of office workers struggle to maintain their sanity in what appears to be the dreariest workplace in cinematic history. Groan-worthy jokes are exchanged and the level of bile between co-workers is palpable. Tensions rise to Abigail's Party proportions during a dinner party in which some uncomfortably uptight young people eat, drink and deliver their barbs. It's what Leigh does best: ugly Brits in ugly homes and workplaces leading ugly lives. My question for fellow Leigh freaks: what, precisely, is the connection between the obsessed couple and the dinner party scenes?

» Matthew Hays