Finding love and then discovering there’s nowhere for it to go thanks to a contracting economy and government hellbent on “breaking” the working class is what Ken Loach’s very fine “Looks and Smiles,” a 1981 classic that offered the first signs of nostalgia for pre-Margaret Thatcher Britain, serves up.

It was Loach’s sixth film, full of the stunning naturalism of acting that doesn’t look like acting (amatuer cast) and a real world of unvarnished harshness and thick, untranslated “dee dars” working class accents. Scripted by Barry Hines, its story provides an apt vehicle — a “lost generation” in the making — for the political awareness that became a Loach trademark.

Not widely seen upon its release, viewed today “Looks and Smiles” provides a stark contrast to the glossy period pieces and Bond-inspired escape of the British cinema of the “Chariots of Fire” era. Today we can stream it at our pleasure and watch it with subtitles on to cut through the “nowt,” thee, thou” Sheffield accents of the cast.

We meet best mates Mick and Alan, played by screen newcomers Graham Green and Tony Pitts, as they’re facing the end of their academic lives and the beginning of adulthood.

They’re not above pranking each other or their friends with a “nicked” (stolen) motobike, as they’re young enought o outrun any copper. But Mick is starting the search for a job in the mechanical repair/engineering field and finding nothing available. Alan spares himself the trouble by enlisting in the army. Mick would, too, but his parents (Pam Darrell and Phil Ashkam) won’t hear his “Army’s the answer” complaints.

It’s the early ’80s, and the British Army is expending much of its energy, moral certitude and blood occupying Northern Ireland. Alan, at least, will find that out. The rest of the country saw industry after industry — manufacturig to mining — gutted by Margaret Thatcher policies without a lot of forethought or compassion.

Mick? He calls on businesses looking for work, applies for “the dole” (unemployment relief) and tries to stay focused, stay positive and not get discouraged.

“Why aren’t there any jobs,” he fumes at the employment counselor? What happens to “workers” when there’s “nowt work to do?”

A generation raised on disco but educated by punk was figuring out that even the limited horizons of their class-conscious underclass parents was going to be beyond their reach.

What can Mick say he does when they meet a cute “bird” (girl) at a club? “On the dole” and “livin’ with me parents.”

Karen (Carolyn Nicholson) has a job in a shoe store and appreciates Mick’s attention enough to treat when they go out to the movies. But she’s bristling at clueless parenting as well. Her single mum (Cilla Mason) has a new fella, and Karen doesn’t approve. If Mick has no prospects he’s not going to be much help getting her out of this situation.

Perhaps the father that fled shortly after his “declared redundant” layoff will take her in.

Loach shows us a stumbling courtship that doesn’t need BIG concerns to trouble its waters. Mick is clueless enough about women to not know how his thoughts of staying at the football match while she makes her own way home with a stomach virus will play.

But we root for the two of them, are charmed by her efforts to help him manage the math of a job aptitude test and wonder if his skill with motorcycles might be his ticket to ride and earn an honest living.

Alan, meanwhile, comes home on leave, picks fights in the club and leads Mick astray in all the old ways that they used to act out — breaking and entering, “nicking” a car. He’s been hardened by his first tour in Northern Ireland.

Most of the cast were amateurs making their screen debut, with “Looks and Smiles” Green’s only screen credit. He is damned near perfect in the part — with the “attempted mustache” of youth and die-hard reasoning that his youth, his muscle and knowledge of engines will take care of him for life.

The story’s arc sets us up for predictable let-downs, but Loach and Hines keep gently upending expectations. I love the way Loach leaves stumbled-over lines in the final cut, adding to the reality of it all.

The parents come off as a tad naive, but well-meaning. Dad’s about to be “made redundant” himself. But he’ll not have his boy enlisted and sent to Ireland.

“Look mate,” Mick’s dad lectures. “Until you’re 18, you’re under our control.”

Karen’s dad has his own dose of reality to dole out, and surprises us with his sympathy for Karen and Mick’s lot.

The film’s politics are subtle, until Mick’s “what do workers do when there’s nowt work” for them to do speech.

And the romance — tentative, chaste and charming — gives away the origins of the movie’s title. How do young women win the fancy of young men, in good times and bad?

With “Looks and smiles,” Chekhov wrote nearly a century before Loach’s film. And so they did and still do, no matter how rough the world they grow up in handles them, no matter how callous “their (elected) betters” treat them.

Rating: unrated, adult situations, fisticuffs, smoking, profanity

Cast: Graham Green, Carolyn Nicholson, Tony Pitts, Cilla Mason, Arthur Davies, Pam Darrell and Phil Askham.

Credits:Directed by Ken Loach, scripted by Barry Hines. An ITC Entertainment release on Tubi, Apple TV, Amazon, other streamers.

Running time: 1:44

Rating: unrated, adult situations, fisticuffs, smoking, profanity

Cast: Graham Green, Carolyn Nicholson, Tony Pitts, Cilla Mason, Arthur Davies, Pam Darrell and Phil Askham.

Credits:Directed by Ken Loach, scripted by Barry Hines. An ITC Entertainment release on Tubi, Apple TV, Amazon, other streamers.

Running time: 1:44