Appropriately hard-hitting on narrative as well as physical levels, The Sporting Life remains a British "kitchen sink" classic that's beautiful to look at and leaves a lingering mark. Read critic reviews
This Sporting Life
1963, Drama, 2h 14m
23 Reviews 1,000+ RatingsWhat to know
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Movie Info
Yorkshire coal miner Frank Machin (Richard Harris) picks a fight in a club and subsequently finds himself being recruited for a rugby team. He's an unpolished player, but his aggressiveness, brutality and indifference to the rules of fair play impress the team owners. Suddenly a rising star, Frank despairs that his success on the playing field isn't equaled in his personal life. He loves a widowed, emotionally challenged landlady (Rachel Roberts) who's too damaged to return his feelings.
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Genre: Drama
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Original Language: English
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Director: Lindsay Anderson
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Release Date (Theaters): original
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Runtime:
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Distributor: Criterion Collection, Continental Distributing Inc.
Cast & Crew
Critic Reviews for This Sporting Life
Audience Reviews for This Sporting Life
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The brutality of Harris brings to mind Brando in Streetcar. He is all brute force and aggression who uses rugby sometimes unsuccessfully as the conduit through which negative emotions go, It is when another outlet is needed that the film becomes stark.
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"This Sporting Life" is one of the most famous of the British "kitchen sink" dramas of the 1950s and 1960s ("kitchen sink" films were very gritty, social realist films which were very popular in Britain at one time). Frank Machin (Richard Harris) is a brutal, young miner in a city in northern England. Hoping for fame and fortune, he becomes a successful Rugby League football player. He uses his fame and fortune, along with physical violence, to try to force his widowed landlady (Rachel Roberts) to fall for him. Photographed in bleak black-and-white, the film's scenes of emotional and physical domestic violence are still shocking today. Also notable are the violent, stylishly-shot rugby matches. The cast are brilliant without exception, especially Richard Harris who manages to invest even his totally unsympathetic character with some degree of humanity.
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One of the original angry young man films is extremely well acted by the leads but is a rather dispiriting experience to sit through.
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Richard Harris gives a very 'Brando-esque' performance in this UK classic. Simply fantastic from start to finish.
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