One of the best Mike Leigh movies I've seen. Great dialogue and characters. The story follows Johnny who is socially isolated, and sort of living in despair. Out of the two main male characters Johnny is more misantropic where as Jeremy is more filled with a sadistic hatred. Exellent portrayal of outsiders. There aren't many movies with charcters like this, done this well. A super tight movie until near the very end and it kind of loses it's intensity, focus and resolve; but still good. Not too keen on the ending, and not because I wanted the story to end on high, but because I don't think the illogical rash things Johnny does gels with his character. There is also no clue as to why he makes these destructive decisions, which cN come across as contrived grittiness in the end. When I think about Jeremy he seems more of a red herring than a fleshed out character, as I didn't feel there was a pay off to him. I think Jeremy did serve some purpose for intrigue and dark tone. Some people over at imbd get bogged down on if Johnny was intellectual or not like its a big deal. I think Johnny was intellegent at times but its more awareness. I don't feel he was conventionally intellegent or had above intellegence and he sometimes used his intellect to be cynical and manipulative, which is who he was.
Still this is way better than the average movie and a show of skill, but a bit of an empty journey.