Another Year

Another Year is the kind of film an actor wishes they had been in and any director wishes they had made. Mike Leigh's skillful directing is at its peak. Long, lingering shots of the characters angst (which normally frustrate the audience) are achieved in an effortless way. The acting is so flawless that it is difficult to find fault. The story is simple and meandering...but it works, and works incredibly well. Another Year will not be to the taste of the young kick-cutting action packed generation. It requires a mature audience or an audience that have at least pondered about what their life would be like after their forties.

This will gain nominations and should win Oscars.

Mike Leighs wonderfully ironic yet sweet look at life takes a little twist in this super ensemble movie which centers around Tom and Gerri and shows us these characters mainly as reflected by their friends and kin. What makes the twist is something written in a different review and which is apparently a Continental European viewpoint if I must believe Mr. Leigh. The minor flaw of this film is that Tom and Gerri hardly develop and if they do, it really is downwards as - when you leave the theatre - you are left with some questions as to whether they really are as warm and supportive as they appear prima facie. Why are all their friends alcoholic losers? And why are they so supportive, yet so aloof? We found a few scenes that show how Tom and Gerri feel about Mary (a shoe-in for any award because of the slightly over-the-top, nail biter performance by Lesley Manville). Their friends really make them feel better about themselves. Whatever may be of this Continental take, it is a tremendously enjoyable movie, as always.

I have heard a lot o buzz surrounding Another Year, and it is one of the last Oscar-nominated films I had yet to see. So I had a chance to watch it today, not knowing what type of film it would be since I have not seen other Mike Leigh films. It engaged me from it's opening scene to the last.

This is a masterful film, dwelling with it's characters in truly humane and intriguing ways. This is an ensemble cast, and as a whole they were all great. Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen are at the center of the film, and the film takes us on a portrayal of their relationship with others. It is to note that the film is contrasting just how different these two main characters' approach life than the people they are surrounded by. The most notable to these other characters is Mary, played by Lesley Manville. I have to say that she gives one of the best performances of 2010, becoming her character. She is vulnerable and at the same time delusional as to her fantasies in life. It's hard to label her performance as leading or supporting. She has a large amount of screen time, but at the same time she serves only as a window looking in to both Sheen and Broadbent's life. She has definitely created one of the most memorable characters in recent memory, and thats largely because of amazing direction and perhaps the best original screenplay of 2010.

Even when Manville is placed in supporting, it is a shame that the Academy went for a more popular actress (Melissa Leo) when Manville and Weaver (Animal Kingdom) both are amazingly much more effective and either deserved to take home that Oscar (what blasphemy that Manville wasn't even nominated). However, this is a rich film, and certainly one of the best of 2010.

Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), the couple at the centre of Mike Leigh's latest existential piece, couldn't be more unlike the cartoon characters who share their names. Together for several decades, their love for each other has only grown. I wouldn't complain if my marriage looked like theirs when I'm in my 50s.

When he isn't working as a geologist and she isn't counselling people, they spend their time providing solace to those who need it – Ken (Peter Wight), a straight-talking, John Smiths-drinking Yorkshireman; Ronnie (David Bradley), Tom's laconic brother whose wife has just died; and most of all Mary (Lesley Manville), a jittery colleague of Gerri's in the middle of a mid-life crisis. It is Mary who dominates the film and who most elicits our empathy. She is without love and possibly even without the hope of love. It is genuinely painful to see her disintegrate scene by scene.

As another year in Tom and Gerri's life unfolds, we see nothing particularly fascinating happen. They tend to their allotment, they invite people to their house for food and company, and they reminisce about their experiences. Nothing could be more trivial, right? Wrong. This film is about growing old and making the right choices as one gets to old age. Above all it's about recognising that happiness is less a right than an aspiration.

The word 'integrity' comes to mind when I think of Mike Leigh. Who else could convince actors to sign up to films where there was no script to begin with? Throughout his career he has eschewed the Hollywood system and has done things his own way ('Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins').

An audience member expostulated at the end, 'That wasn't very uplifting'. She's correct, but Leigh doesn't offer folly or fantasy. He's a truth-seeking social observer and commentator. What's also appealing about Leigh is that he doesn't spoon-feed his audience. His films compel the watcher to debate what they have seen and draw their own conclusions. Why should films give us answers?

I was moved by this film like no other in recent memory. One moment I was laughing uncontrollably, the next I was holding back tears. The film emphasises a sad fact: for some people, things don't always go according to plan. Sometimes we're just plain unlucky. And that's life.

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A strange and sad little film beautifully acted by its ensemble cast. Lesley Manville's agonised performance as Mary, aching with envy at the solidity and comfort of her best friend's solid marriage, must be a shoo-in for awards next year, but Ruth Sheen is also 100% believable as the endlessly patient, almost 'saintly' Gerri. Jim Broadbent's Tom teeters on the verge of hamminess, allowing Peter Wight to steal the male acting honours as Ken, another lonely and alcoholic divorcée.

After a sad Spring and a prickly Summer, Autumn brings romance to Tom and Gerri's bachelor son and Winter brings a funeral (not the one we've been dreading). Anchored by the couple's devotion to their allotment, Mike Leigh gives us a film about the seasons in our lives as well as in our vegetable patches. In life, as in the garden, some things flourish and blossom while others wither and decay.

Often humorous but mostly achingly sad, this is a very fine film about the Ordinary Lives of Ordinary People. Not to be missed.