Looks and Smiles (1981) watch online HD

Thatcherism and the Irish troubles provide the backdrop for this study of Mick, a well-meaning youth in Sheffield, who has, unlike Dickens' Pip, no expectations. Mick lives with his parents, works on his motorbike, looks for work, and every two weeks gets his check from the dole. There are no jobs. His best mate Alan joins the army to fix tanks and is sent to Belfast to quell Catholics. At a disco, Mick meets Karen, who works at a shoe shop and lives with her recently-separated mom. Karen misses her dad. She offers Mick emotional stability and a route to adulthood; Alan pitches the army. Does Mick have a future?

Jacob Leigh wrote that Ken Loach considered the film a failure (p.142 in "The Cinema of Ken Loach: art in the service of the people".

When the film premiered at the New York Film Festival, the New York Times gave a generally positive review but complained about the Sheffield dialect used in the film, saying "a great deal of the dialogue remains unintelligible to the American ear".