As for the kids, they do a decent enough job. Like most British children in film, everything they do seems more charming than their American counterparts. I’m pretty sure all parents wish their kids talked with funny British accents and acted like little adults. I know I would if I had children.

The setting are just as cheerless as the kids come from a rotten home where the dad works all day in the factory and the mom stays at home bitching about it. They are so poor that the little boy has to crap in a plastic bowl. Sam also lives in squalor with the pained memories of his dead wife who he still talks about as if she were alive. He’s probably even a little daft but that is to be expected given his situation. Needless to say, these usually don’t make for uplifting cinematic moments unless there’s Gene Wilder and a nearby candy factory involved.

Also, this film takes place entirely on overcast days, making this one dreary little flick. It’s too rainy to even be a ‘rainy-day movie.’ I would understand if it was so that the inevitable breaking of the sun in the end would indicate that all is well again but even then, the sky stays gray. If you’re anything like me, certain films play better at certain times, sometimes certain seasons even (horror films in the evening, Westerns in the summer), but you’d be hard pressed to find the ideal time to watch this. Maybe after a favorite uncle dies? I don’t know.

It’s probably a British thing that I don’t grasp but The Optimists does have its fair amount of fans. Legend Films has done them a favor by rescuing this from the vaults at Paramount with a proper release that boasts a fine transfer considering the elements at hand. Though in a perpetual gloom, the scenery does make for some nice cinematography as only the early ‘70s could, rendering the film’s palette to appear much richer than it really is with its royal blues, burgundy reds, and forest greens. The mono audio isn’t the strongest but that’s probably because everyone talks like bloody fucking Londoners that only bloody fucking Londoners can understand. Needless to say, subtitles would have been a most welcomed addition (something that Legend Films has yet to learn). Like most of their recent releases, Legend Films graces the film’s DVD cover with the original artwork, a practice that I can’t help but commend every time.