Dolce è la vita

What can I say that previous fans of this movie have not said yet? I think that Mike Leigh is the best filmmaker working today. So, I won't bother rehashing the story line.

I am convinced even thinking back to 1991, when it was released in the US, that Life is Sweet was the best of that year. That year was remembered more for, among others, Schindler's List, The Remains of the Day and The Piano.

Alison Steadman seemingly insensitive lighthearted outlook on the world -laughing after nearly every sentence she or others utter, which incredibly I never tired of (an amazing feat), is all just her way of dealing with life. She sees it for what it is. The scene where she explains to her daughter Nicola how much of a sacrifice that she and her husband have made for the sake of their family is one of the most touching I have seen between a mother and daughter. I felt as though I was eaves-dropping while watching it. What a pleasure!

A sublime slice of ordinary life from Mike Leigh. He takes us through 5 days in the life of a London family: Jim Broadbent, Alison Steadman and their twin daughters Claire Skinner and Jane Horrox. What follows is by turns touching, hilarious and unsettling. Leigh is often compared to Ken Loach, but Loach deals with unspeakably grim and often melodramatic scenarios. The far more impressive gift of Leigh is to make tales from the apparently unremarkable. So many touches run true here; Steadman doing a little dance to herself alone in the kitchen, Broadbent and Stephen Rea drunkenly reciting the Spurs Double side, Skinner describing an arthritic old woman met on her plumbing round. And the tragedy of the film is also unveiled naturally and feels horribly believable.

The performances are also astonishing. Broadbent and Steadman, both distinctive actors, can descend into parody but here are just hugely enjoyable. Skinner is nicely deadpan but the star is Horrox, playing a twitching wreck of a girl who mainly communicates in one word insults. Little wonder she's been given so many chances to prove her talents subsequently, just a shame she's never taken them. The only false note is Tim Spall as a manic chef. Perhaps that's because he's simply put in for comic value (he was far better in Leigh's 'Secrets and Lies'), his character given none of the depth which lights up the rest of the film.

... as is the case with many films in the Criterion collection, because this film does not set things up nicely for you. It is a slow reveal for all of the characters with the basic theme of "hope springs eternal" or maybe "Life is what you make of it". So after I had gotten a feel for the characters I went back and rewatched it to see what I didn't pick up the first time.

The focus of the film is a working class London family. Wendy works in a shop as a salesperson. Her husband is a chef in a restaurant. They got married at 17 - with her having to drop out of college - due to her pregnancy that produced twin girls. You'd think then that this would be about their disappointment with how their lives turned out, but they are almost annoyingly positive. Wendy is the strong one, always smiling. Husband Andy is also always smiling and seems easily led by his friends. He just never gets around to fixing things around the house, and one friend (Stephen Rea), an obvious con artist, works his magic on Andy and gets him to spend money he does not have on a broken down fast food van. Andy has dreams of fixing it up and going into business for himself as he hates his job. And oddly enough Wendy doesn't explode at this expense and is very supportive. She seems to laugh her way through life.

One thing that she can't laugh through though is her daughter Nicola. She is about twenty, anorexic, a chain smoker, and completely hostile to everybody. She just sits in her room all day blurting out insults to everybody. You wonder if she is starving herself in hopes she will eventually just disappear. The other daughter seems well adjusted enough and is working as a plumber. She seems sexually ambiguous, and though nothing in the plot goes in that direction, I had to wonder if that is just me stereotyping or if it is the fact the film is 30 years old and films stereotyped too back in those days.

The family's other friend is Aubrey whose "big dream" is a Parisian themed restaurant. But his taste in decor is bizarre and tacky, he selects employees based on tenuous personal connections, and he has placed his restaurant between two businesses that would not bring foot traffic - one is a medical equipment supplier, and he has forgotten to advertise the restaurant. The result is disastrous.

The best scene in the film is one between Patsy and Nicola in which they finally have a confrontation. So much of what I have said is explained in just this one scene. Patsy does have an inner core, she can be serious and Nicola can be reached, whether she wants to admit it or not. Somebody should have gotten an Academy Award nomination just for this scene.

If you don't like this the first time, then give it a second try. I think it will grow on you.

A superb example of Mike Leigh's directing method - working with his actors, many of them regulars, making up most of the script as they go along.

No falling empires or coveted magical rings here, just the small victories and tiny despairs of everyday life - Timothy Spall's ridiculous restaurant ("Liver in Lager"??), Jane Horrocks' eating disorder and general estrangement from the world, Jim Broadbent and his grimy little burger van, Clair Skinner's endearingly sensible tomboy plumber... all exquisite little portraits. Best of all is Alison Steadman as the suburban Earth-mother trying to hold it all together.

It shows, above all, that a great film can be about anything really, as long as the direction, acting and script is of this calibre. Ben Hur, it ain't!

Absolutely marvelous - 9/10.

this is another one of those movies that i loved so much the first time i saw it, i cried in the theater, went home, came back the next day with a friend in tow.

unlike the other movies i did this with (raising Arizona, after hours), the person i saw it with actually got the movie the first time, and loved it as much as i did. yes, naked and Topsy turvy got all the praise, but this is my favorite Leigh movie. it is just so...sweet.

i would talk about this movie years after seeing it saying that it was so heartbreakingly real, if you cut the screen, it would bleed. the was something so compelling about everyone in this movie. someone said they were pathetic, but i couldn't say i saw it like that. they were just flawed people doing the best they could. to me that is so beautiful. for years i would wish that America had a real working class director like mike Leigh. someone who showed people struggling. we need it so very badly, as the aftermath of Katrina can attest to. we forget our poor over here.

the funniest thing was i wold watch this movie when i got depressed, and it made me feel less alone. it cheered me up.