A Taste of Honey (1961)

 Tony Richardson's "A Taste of Honey"


Before watching Tony Richardson's 1961 film "A Taste of Honey," my understanding of the British "kitchen sink drama" was limited to films about angry young heterosexual men: 1959's "Look Back in Anger" and 1960's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning." However, "A Taste of Honey" completely flipped this format on its head. Not only does this newfound exploration of Britain's lower class troubles feature a young woman as its lead, it unflinchingly observes the entire caste of the lower class's identity.

The film centers on a 17-year-old girl named Jo living in Salford with her single mother. Jo develops with a relationship with Jimmy, a young black sailor, while her mother strikes up a romantic involvement with a man named Peter. After Jo and Jimmy sleep together, Jimmy leaves, promising to come back. While awaiting his return, Jo's mother abandons her to live with Peter. Now alone, Jo leaves school, gets a job in a shoe shop, and moves into a small loft. She invites Geoffrey, a gay textile student, to come and live with her after he was evicted. After Jo's mother comes back to her after her marriage to Peter falls apart, she pushes Geoffrey out. Jo confides to her mother that her baby might be black and they now anxiously await their future.

I think the male-dominated aspects of the "kitchen sink drama" have been far overplayed. The expansion of those same themes are far more interesting and unique to the social disparity found in "A Taste of Honey." These characters are truly trapped by their identities, whether that identity is class, race, sex, or sexual orientation. This adds a new dimensionality to the concepts of social displacement that some of the other films fail to provide.



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