Mike Leigh's poignant comedy drama depicts a year in the life of a contented middle-aged London couple. Mike McCahil plays host to this return to form by the master filmmaker.
If there's one recurring theme in the Mike Leigh filmography - upon which he continues to play subtle, skilful variations - it's how we come to deal with the vicissitudes of existence. Think of David Thewlis's Johnny in Naked (1993), ferociously raging against the dying of the light, or Sally Hawkins' Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), a fervent collector of silver linings. Those Marmite-movies mark the twin extremes of the director's work. The characters in Leigh's latest, Another Year, cleave steadfastly to the middle ground: they're muddling through as best they can.
These are 12 months in the lives of geological engineer Tom (Jim Broadbent), his counsellor wife Gerri (Ruth Sheen), and their various passing friends, most of which are introduced bounding up the stairs in the couple's comfortably appointed semi to take a pee and a place in the spare bedroom. Foremost amongst these houseguests is Gerri's scatty, unmarried colleague Mary (Lesley Manville).
Mary likes Gerri and Tom, but their every shared look and laugh - their every loving reunion with grown son Joe (Oliver Maltman) - is a painful reminder of what she herself lacks. It's the reason she drinks, and when she drinks, she gets troublesome. Other visitors prove even more tragic like Ken (Peter Wight), a bluff, burly sort who’s apt to overdoing the red wine and tears before bedtime. In a world where nobody appears happy, Leigh reasons, perhaps getting by like Gerri and Tom is all we can hope to achieve.
In everything from its cast to its look to Gary Yershon's simple, plaintive score, Another Year is very clearly a return to Leigh's Film on Four days, observing the tensions that arise quietly in kitchens and living rooms - this time, thankfully, without the knock-down, drag-out melodramatics of Secrets & Lies (1996). Revisiting these homes, themes and characters allows the actors to reach another level entirely, building on what's gone before. Manville is both exquisitely and excruciatingly good - the logical successor to Poppy as a character which you can't watch without having your hands ready to cover your eyes, a whirlwind of gauche flirting, conversational hairpin turns and pitiful self-recrimination.
As for Broadbent and Sheen, both restate their bids for national-treasure status. "Bread and cheese" the two chirp in unison when asked what it is they have for lunch. Broadbent's remarkably expressive double-act with a cafetiere, or Sheen's guarded seething after Mary has taken exception to the new girlfriend Tom has brought home expose a real depth and subtlety here.
"Life's not always kind" Gerri suggests to Mary during a garden party, and the ruefulness the camera catches in Sheen's eyes is in itself enough to stave off the now-expected accusations this director is dealing in caricature. It's typical of how this extraordinarily truthful film transcends what first appear narrow and cosy confines to range far and wide.
Another Year displays a keener interest in structure than Leigh has previously, not just in the seasonal chaptering, but in the way dialogue and plot developments come to echo one another. We end with the characters mired in winter, with the pronounced chill of mortality in the air. All are welcome at Tom and Gerri's, but both the film and its director know at least a couple of them - and more than a few of us - will be going home alone.
Mike Leigh's touching comedy drama depicts another year in the life of a contented middle-aged London couple. Medical counsellor Gerri (Ruth Sheen) is happily married to Tom (Jim Broadbent). The film follows Gerri over the course of the year as she opens her home and heart to her emotionally needy colleague Mary (Lesley Manville), counsels a chronic insomniac (Imelda Staunton), spends time on her allotment with Tom and plays host to their 30-year-old lawyer son Joe (Oliver Maltman) and his wife and baby.
Superbly acted, this is a richly nuanced and poignant drama that will be appreciated by anyone familiar with the disappointments of love and ageing (ie most of us).
