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The Long Day Closes
The Long Day Closes
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Terence Davies
Written by	Terence Davies
Produced by	Olivia Stewart
Starring	Marjorie Yates; Leigh McCormack; Anthony Watson; Nicholas Lamont; Ayse Owens
Cinematography	Michael Coulter
Edited by	William Diver
Music by	Bob Last; Robert Lockhart
Production; companies	British Film Institute; Film Four International
Distributed by	Mayfair Entertainment
Release dates	May 13, 1992 (Cannes); May 22, 1992;
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Long Day Closes is a 1992 British drama film written and directed by Terence Davies and starring Marjorie Yates, Leigh McCormack, Anthony Watson, Nicholas Lamont and Ayes Owens. It was entered into the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.^[2]

Plot

The film is set in Liverpool in the mid-1950s. The story concerns a shy twelve-year-old boy, Bud, and his loving mother and siblings. He lives a life rich in imagination, centred on family relationships, church, and his struggles at school. Music and snatches of movie dialogue allow him to enrich his narrow physical environment. "Together these fragments", wrote Stephen Holden in The New York Times, "evoke a postwar England starved for beauty, fantasy and a place to escape."^[3]

Cast

Marjorie Yates as Mother
Leigh McCormack as Bud
Anthony Watson as Kevin
Nicholas Lamont as John
Ayse Owens as Helen
Tina Malone as Edna
Jimmy Wilde as Curly
Robin Polley as Mr. Nicholls
Pete Ivatts as Mr. Bushell
Joy Blakeman as Frances
Denise Thomas as Jean
Patricia Morison as Amy (as Patricia Morrison)
Gavin Mawdslay as Billy (as Gavin Mawdslay)
Kirk McLaughlin as Labourer / Christ
Mark Heath as Black Man
Victoria Davies as Nun
Brenda Peters as Nurse
Kerl Skeggs as Albie
Lee Blennerhassett as 1st Bully
Peter Hollier as 2nd Bully
Jason Jevons as 3rd Bully

Music

The film uses 35 pieces of music, including renditions of songs by Nat King Cole.

Critic David Thomson in his April 2007 review of the film in the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine draws attention to the music that was used in the film, in particular "at the end of the film ... that mackerel sky and Sir Arthur Sullivan's 'The Long Day Closes' itself"^[4] sung by Pro Cantione Antiqua.^[5]

Production

The film was filmed in sets built in Rotherhithe London at Sands Films Studio under the meticulous instructions of the director.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 81% approval rating based on reviews from 21 critics, with an average rating of 7.60 out of 10.^[6] On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 85/100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[7]

A 2009 appreciation by Dennis Lim said:

Working with the most basic and most ethereal of cinematic materials — time and memory — Mr. Davies has devised a mosaiclike film language. Childhood recollections are consecrated as moments out of time and assembled into a symphonic collage, guided more by emotional logic than by plot or chronology. The working-class milieu that tends to be associated with the drab naturalism of the British kitchen-sink school, here comes swaddled in sensory delights: stately tracking shots and overhead angles, gusts of Mahler and Nat King Cole. The overall effect is one of muted rapture, a swelling ecstasy held in check by a constant tug of sadness.^[8]

"Together these fragments", wrote Stephen Holden in The New York Times, "evoke a postwar England starved for beauty, fantasy and a place to escape...The Long Day Closes is filled with surreal, expressionistic touches that lend it the aura of a phantasmagoric cinematic poem."^[3]

On IndieWire's 2022 'The 100 Best Movies of the 90s' list, the film was crowned the ninth best film of its decade. Critic David Ehrlich writes "Davies’ fading slipstream of a film drifts through the rain and rubble of postwar England with the meticulousness of a Wes Anderson movie, eventually freezing over into a delicate snow-globe that swirls the pain of repression into the pleasure of self-discovery."^[9]

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Nominee	Result	Ref.
1992	Cannes Film Festival	Palme d'Or	The Long Day Closes	Nominated	^[10]
1992	Evening Standard British Film Awards	Best Screenplay	Terence Davies	Won
1992	Valladolid International Film Festival	Golden Spike	Terence Davies	Won