Look Back in Anger (1980 film) Look Back in Anger (1980 film) Look Back in Anger is a 1980 British film starring Malcolm McDowell, Lisa Banes and Fran Brill, and directed by Lindsay Anderson and David Hugh Jones. The film is based on John Osborne's play "Look Back in Anger". "Look Back in Anger" is about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man Jimmy Porter (Malcolm McDowell), his upper-middle-class, impassive wife Alison Porter (Lisa Banes), and her snooty best friend Helena Charles (Fran Brill). Cliff (Raymond Hardie), an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace. Lindsay Anderson, who had previously worked with
John Osborne and the two of them saw it together. Miller found the play revelatory, and they went backstage to meet Osborne. Olivier was impressed by the American's reaction, and asked Osborne for a part in his next play. John Heilpern suggests the great actor's about-face was due to a midlife crisis, Olivier seeking a new challenge after decades of success in Shakespeare and other classics, and fearful of losing his pre-eminence to this new kind of theatre. George Devine, artistic director of the Royal Court, sent Olivier the incomplete script of "The Entertainer" (1957, film version released in 1960) and Olivier