Up the Junction is a 1968 British "kitchen sink" drama film, directed by Peter Collinson and starring Dennis Waterman, Suzy Kendall, Adrienne Posta, Maureen Lipman and Liz Fraser.

[6] The film is set in London in the 1960s and it begins with wealthy young heiress Polly Dean leaving a large house in privileged Chelsea in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce.

She moves to a working-class community in Battersea, where she takes a job in Macrindles confectionery factory in an attempt to distance herself from her moneyed upbringing and make her own living.

Rube becomes pregnant from her boyfriend Terry and has a traumatic illegal abortion from a slightly senile old woman called Winnie.

They argue in their hotel, it becoming clear that Pete envies Polly's access to an easy life, and is frustrated by her rejection of a wealthy lifestyle.

[citation needed] According to Kinematograph Weekly, there were four British films in the top ten general releases of 1968: Up the Junction, Poor Cow, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and Carry on Doctor.

Monthly Film Bulletin said "Nell Dunn’s sketches of her Battersea friends had a lively and dispassionate warmth that remains at the heart of Roger Smith’s screenplay.

From her somewhat shapeless material he has fashioned a coherent story substituting Polly for the original’s narrator and giving her an emotional relationship with Peter which acts as a continuous thread holding the loosely strung episodes together.

The girl’s naive assumption that working class people are somehow more "real" than her own kind is matched by her boyfriend’s pathetic belief that money and fast cars are the keys to an earthly paradise.

Of the performances, she singled out the "very talented" Suzy Kendall in a challenging role, "a really beautiful piece of characterization by Dennis Waterman," and "strong" support from Adrienne Posta, Maureen Lipman and Michael Gothard.

Loach's semi-documentary style gave Battersea the suitably bleak look that made the central character's decision to move there from Chelsea seem both politically significant and socially courageous.

Collinson, however, offers a working-class wonderland and has Suzy Kendall play the girl as a cross between a 1960s supermodel and a melodramatic sob sister.