A British film from the late 1950s that I somehow knew absolutely nothing about, aside from the phrase being used in other ways (including the pop single by Adam Ant), Room At The Top is a film that has immediately become a new favourite of mine, thanks to the way it drags viewers through some very dark and bleak territory without having it all seem too unbearable.
Laurence Harvey plays Joe Lampton, a young and ambitious account who goes through life with an eye on the ladies and a chip on his shoulder. He sets his sights on the lovely Susan Brown (Heather Sears), the daughter of a fairly rich and powerful man, but also keeps himself busy by having an affair with the unhappily married Alice Aisgill (Simone Signoret). As time passes and feathers start to become ruffled, Joe becomes bolder in his behaviour while distancing himself from the home and working-class background he came from.
Adapted into screenplay form by Neil Paterson, from the novel by John Braine, this works brilliantly as both a character study and a look at the class system. There are times when Lampton seems to be careening towards self-destruction, but there are also times when his attitude and actions only seem worse because of how the upper-classes judge him. Everything is relative, for better or worse, and this is strongly underlined in an astonishingly impactful finale.
Director Jack Clayton may be more celebrated for his next directorial feature, a classic of the horror genre (The Innocents, 1961), but this deserves an equal amount of praise, particularly with regards to how Clayton seems to get as close as he can to what was permissible and acceptable onscreen back at this time. Maybe I am misjudging the era, but this still feels very much like the main character, full of pent-up resentment and aggression. Morals are discarded in favour of social progression, many characters are used as stepping stones, and there are a couple of moments that deliver the cinematic equivalent of a slap to the face.
Harvey is impressive in the lead role, delivering a fine performance that leaves vanity at the door. His character is very easy to dislike, even outright hate at times, but viewers are allowed to start piecing together the backstory that turned him into what he is. In the role of Susan, Sears is a delight for every moment she’s onscreen, as she has been in other movie roles, and her bubbly naïveté is nicely juxtaposed alongside the pragmatism and weariness of the character portrayed by the excellent Signoret. Donald Wolfit and Ambrosine Phillpotts are both very good, playing the parents of young Susan, and Donald Houston is a friend/colleague who often tries to be the voice of reason for our leading man. Other familiar faces crop up in small roles, but the only other one I will mention here is the wonderful Allan Cuthbertson (star of many films and TV shows, but arguably known to many for his appearance in the Fawlty Towers episode that has Basil Fawlty thrashing his car).
If there’s one criticism to be made here, I would say that I wish there had been a way to coat the bitter pill with a bit more sugar. That isn’t something I always consider, which maybe says more about how much I wanted to stay aligned with the central character, but I felt that the third act was as disorientating as it was effective, teetering on the edge of being a terrifying journey into a very particular realm of purgatory that is only available to those with enough money and not enough consideration for others.
9/10
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