Duane Hopkins doesn’t do feel good. His new film Bypass is an urban thriller with a powerful sense of the narrowed options of teenager Tim, played by rising star George Mackay.

Living on the edge in a grim post-industrial satellite town with no means of support, he’s caught in an ever-tightening grip of poverty.

The death of his mother and a dad who has long since disappeared leaves Tim to look after his younger sister (Lara Peake), who is bunking off school and moping around the house. 

Trying to avoid bailiffs and a local fence demanding money from him, he follows older brother Greg into crime, selling stolen goods and breaking and entering.

In a year that has seen a burst of films about the miners’ strike — Pride and Still the Enemy Within — Hopkins zooms forward to the human consequence of Margaret Thatcher’s victory and the destruction of working-class communities.

Talking to the Morning Star, Hopkins denies that the storyline is overly grim. “It’s not that bleak,” says the West Midlands-born director. The  idea arose talking to youngsters on estates who lived precarious lives just like those of Tim when he was making his first film Better Things. 

“I found when I was making Better Things I went into smaller towns. It seems to me that the working class didn’t exist as I remembered growing up. It seemed to have become a different class that had dropped off the economic map,” he explains. 

Hopkins grew up in a working-class West Midlands community where most people had stable jobs in local factories. “When I was talking to the kids their lives were very chaotic, very insecure. A lot of the estates had become something else than what I remember as a child. 

“I started doing a lot of research into the post-war new towns which were built up around manufacturing and when they shut down there was really nothing to replace them.

“These kids were now reaping what had happened when these places were closed down in the 1980s.” 

“I came across ‘Tim’ one night — this one kid seemed to be reluctant to go through with this burglary. They were going to burgle these houses and they actually knew these people.” 

“I was meeting a lot of kids and families and building a narrative from that. I met people like Greg, Tim’s older brother, who had talents when they were young and hadn’t been able to build a life and had gone in a different direction. These kids were very open and also very moral.”

The underground economy that Tim is trapped in is a version of the same debt-based system that keeps most people burdened with mortgages, rent and credit, says Hopkins. “It’s very similar to how society works — getting someone in debt and making them work for you. It’s all going in here at an illegal level in the same way it does in the legal economy. The safety net has already failed.”

“It makes you come to an almost Marxist analysis of these situations because it’s a very straightforward process of exploitation.”

Hopkins doesn’t see any particular parallel between his work and that of others who try to dramatise the life of working-class people like Ken Loach or Shane Meadows. In one sense, though he shares something with Meadows, with his focus on rounded, complex characters. “I didn’t want to make out that any of the people are evil, they are just trying to survive. 

“In fact they have very strong moral codes, they feel responsible for the people around them and are trying to do the best in the circumstances. 

“Tim tries very hard and tries to live up to his responsibilities. There are aspects to him that are almost right-wing and Thatcherite — looking after yourself and having your own agency. This is something Tim has in abundance. It’s just that he can’t break out of his situation. There is no social mobility. 

“It makes me very angry that loss of human potential. No matter how smart, dedicated and talented they are they simply won’t find a way of fulfilling their potential.”  

“I wanted to make a film that was dynamic and compelling within the guise of a thriller where I could smuggle other themes in there. 

“It has a societal, a philosophical and political element. In other cuts we had more scenes to what happened to manufacturing  and what happened to the father. 

“Tim and Greg’s father are a metaphor for the loss of industry. When I grew up you would go to the working men’s club. They were huge places, and there was a sense of community. There were lots of people there and now they are boarded up. If you remove something positive there is a very big chance that something negative will grow in its place.”

Mackay, his star, had one of the lead parts in the late-summer hit Pride as a member of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. “I haven’t seen Pride but I think anything that sparks dialogue about what was lost and what was gained [in the miners’ strike] is very, very useful.”

“At the same time as looking back there has to be a look at what is happening now and not romanticising it. I’ve always liked films that are extremely immersive and take you into the interior of the character and what they are feeling. You want to be involved in that as far as possible.”

Bypass premieres at the London Film Festival tonight at the Odeon West End and is being screened at Hackney Picture House on October 14.