Richard Billingham shot to fame as a photographer when his warts and all “Ray’s a Laugh” pictures featured in the iconic 1996 collective exhibition that launched Damien Hirst into the stratosphere and made art cool again. Later, Billingham made an experimental short film based on the photographs, which portrayed in uncompromising detail the claustrophobic and messy lives of his parents--Ray, the quiet alcoholic and Liz, the extrovert smoker with an addiction to jigsaw puzzles.

That has now developed into a feature film that perfectly captures Billingham’s photographic aesthetic. Shot on 16mm in what is called “Academy ratio” that lends the film an even more confined atmosphere, “Ray & Liz” is divided into distinct chapters.

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They are at times disturbing and amusing, involving Ray’s mentally backward brother looking after 2-year old Jason while the parents take Richard shopping--the entrance of the family’s bullying lodger fills the audience with trepidation. By the time Jason is 10 years old, the teenage Richard is already seeking to escape the family home having recognised the self-destructive nature of his parents. But Jason is left to his own devices and wanders the streets looking for friends and connections, but unable to express his loneliness or helplessness, which leads to harrowing consequences. Then there is a study of the older Ray, living alone in the upper floors of an council apartment block, confined to his one room and reliant on a friend to deliver bottles of the potent home brew that is his lifeline.

Ellla Smith and Deirdre Kelly and Justin Sallinger and Patrick Romer put in great performances as Liz and Ray in their younger and older years. Billingham’s decision to leave his own story to one side is intelligent, providing a more objective and non-judgemental view of his parents’ troubles and struggles. His photographer’s eye also allows him to focus on inanimate objects that underscore the squalor and neglect in which he grew up. But for all its bleak episodes and the disdain that some audiences may feel for its protagonists, “Ray & Liz” is also a damning indictment of what life was like for many of the socially excluded in Britain during the 1980s, the Thatcher years. That the timing of the film’s release coincides with clamp downs by successive governments on social spending and the brink of Brexit is telling.

“Ray & Liz” is being screened at Cinémathèque, place du Théâtre, at 8.30 p.m. and again on Wednresday at the Cinémathèque at 2 p.m.