In Celebration

In their tiny house in a Yorkshire mining town, God-fearing and hard-working Mr. and Mrs. Shaw (Bill Owen and Constance Chapman) welcome their sons home to celebrate the couple's fortieth wedding anniversary. But with each son's arrival, more and more of the Shaw's model blue collar family facade begins to chip away. Middle son Colin's (James Bolam) engagement has placed him on the path to a loveless marriage. Barely shouldering the burdens of his shattered artistic aspirations and his own family, Steven, the baby (Brian Cox), is on the threshold of a nervous breakdown. But the toaster tossed into this already scalding theatrical bath is Alan Bates as eldest son Andrew. As father, mother and brothers futilely try to hide the truth from themselves and each other, Bates' Andrew tears into the Shaw family's carefully maintained fictions with animal fury and all too human bitterness. (Kino Lorber)