Ray & Liz is a 2018 British drama film written and directed by Richard Billingham in his feature debut.[1][2] The film retells Billingham's troubled childhood growing up in a Black Country council flat during the Thatcher era. It focuses "on his parents Ray and Liz, their relationship, and its impact on Richard and his younger brother Jason."[3] Billingham, a photographer, previously published the book Ray's a Laugh (1996), with photographs of his family at the time depicted in the film.
On its release, the film received widespread critical acclaim in the UK, the US and in Europe. It was also awarded several prizes in film festivals on both sides of the Atlantic.
Plot
The film retells Billingham's troubled childhood growing up in a Black Country council flat during the Thatcher era.[4] It focuses "on his parents Ray and Liz, their relationship, and its impact on Richard and his younger brother Jason."[3]
Origins
The film has an origin in Ray, a single-screen video artwork that premiered at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea in 2015.[5] Prior to that, its origins lie in Billingham's mid-1990s snapshots of his alcoholic father Ray, chain-smoking mother Liz and younger brother Jason, collected in the book Ray's a Laugh (1996) and included in the art exhibition Sensation that premiered in 1997.[2][6]
Released in the UK in March 2019, the film received critical acclaim. In a five-star review, The Irish Times wrote that it was a "gruelling uncompromising and beautiful movie".[8]The Independent praised it as "unexpectedly moving and touched by grace".[9]The Telegraph described it as a "darkly funny portrait of a Britain that shouldn’t exist".[10]The Guardian hailed it as an "extraordinary family album brought to life".[11]The Times rated it four out of five and wrote: "the authenticity is bracing, the framing and lighting as striking as you'd expect from a photographer".[12] In the US, Guy Lodge of Variety described the film as "a rare and remarkable cine-memoir ... a uniquely moving work of self-identification and self-illustration, bristling with pride, anger and even some regret — for the general ugly state of things, certainly, but perhaps for a family he’s come to see, and shoot, a little differently over the decades".[13] In France, monthly magazine Les Cahiers du Cinéma rated it film of the month, saying: Ray & Liz is "a haunting piece [...] that conceal the secrets of a solitary childhood" and is "a great crazy love movie".[14]Télérama hailed it as "georgeous and melancolic".[15]
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 69 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "Ray & Liz takes an unflinching look at lives impacted by poverty whose lingering impact is enhanced by writer-director Richard Billingham's refusal to indulge in sentimentality."[16]
