Is Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner a film for our times?

As well as Tom Courtney, as Colin Smith, an unemployed young man coping with the death of his father, there is James Bolam as his best friend, and Michael Redgrave as the governor of the borstal to which he is sent, who pits him against the star runner of a neighbouring public school (James Fox) as a means of demonstrating the success of his rehabilitation programme.