Build a movie plot around this: Where is the story set? Rural England
Answer:
"The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner" begins with Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay) running, alone, along a bleak country road somewhere in rural England. In a brief voiceover, Colin tells us that running is the way his family has always coped with the world's troubles, but that in the end, the runner is always alone and cut off from spectators, left to deal with life on his own.Next, we see Colin in handcuffs with a group of other similarly encumbered young men. They are being taken to Ruxton Towers, what we would today term a medium security prison for young juvenile offenders. It is overseen by "The Governor" (Michael Redgrave), who believes that the hard work and discipline imposed on his charges will ultimately make them useful members of society. Colin, sullen and rebellious, immediately catches his eye as a test of his beliefs.An important part of The Governor's rehabilitation program is athletics, and he soon notices that Colin is a talented runner, able to easily outrun Ruxton's reigning long distance runner. As The Governor was once a runner himself, he is especially keen on Colin's abilities because for the first time, his charges have been invited to compete in a five-mile marathon against a nearby public school, Ranley, and its privileged students from upper class families. The Governor sees the invitation as an important way to demonstrate the success of his rehabilitation program.As the Governor takes Colin under his wing, offering him outdoor gardening work and eventually the freedom of practice runs outside Ruxton's barbed wire fences, we learn in a series of flashbacks how Colin came to be incarcerated. We see his difficult, economically strained family life in a lower-class workers' complex in industrial Nottingham. Without a job, Colin indulges in petty crimes in the company of his best friend, Mike (James Bolam). Meanwhile, at home, his father's long years of toil in a local factory have resulted in a terminal illness for which his father refuses treatment. Colin is angered by the...