Leigh’s Another Year a Quietly Profound Marvel
Mike Leigh’s Another Year is a movie about very little that manages to say a whole heck of a lot. It follows a year in the life of longtime married couple Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). He’s a geologist working for the government on subterranean drilling projects in London, she’s a patient and caring therapist at a local hospital. The two spend time together managing their allotment, a community garden where they grow the best sorts of vegetables, flowers and plants.
Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville and Ruth Sheen in Another Year
© Sony Pictures Classics
Throughout the year they watch their son Joe (Oliver Maltman) go from being happily single to being completely entranced with the bubbly Katie (Karina Fernandez), try their best to be a caring friend to Gerri’s emotionally frazzled coworker Mary (Lesley Manville) and enjoy a visit from Tom’s childhood friend Ken (Peter Wight). They, along with Joe, do their best to present a loving front when Tom’s brother Ronnie (David Bradley) faces a deathly tragedy, opening their hearts and their front door to him in his time of need.
Split into four seasons, the movie is a delicate, distinctly beguiling charmer that at times broke my heart right in two. It connects in a way that caught me a bit off guard, keeping me entranced all the way through even as some of the characters presented weren’t always in an entirely happy place. This is a story about how people live, how people love and how people do whatever they can to get through the next hour (let alone the entire day), all of it speaking with a delicate eloquence that touched my soul.
Leigh and his extraordinary cast do wonders. Everything they present is just looks so easy, so effortless, that the proceedings become almost documentary-like in their persuasive exactitude. Dick Pope’s (Me and Orson Welles, Happy-Go-Lucky) camera seems to float through the proceedings almost as if it wasn’t even there, and at a certain point I began to feel as if I were somehow transported inside the frame to become part of this celluloid dreamscape along with the rest of the actors.
I don’t want to make things sound like this is some sort of bucolic fantasyland where everything is filled with wine and roses. Just the opposite, really, Leigh never shying from the darker places that life can oftentimes take us. Mary is a mess, entering her 40’s unsure if she’ll ever find that certain someone to spend her latter days with. Ken is overweight, hating his dead-end government job and feeling as if his chance for greatness has passed him by. Ronnie is wounded and clueless as to where he should go from here, the loss he’s just experienced only amplified due to the fact his estranged son Carl (Martin Savage) blames him for his own shortcomings and what he feels was his mother’s constant unhappiness.
Yet there is ample light inside this darkness, most of it supplied by Tom and Gerri and how they do their best to accept everyone with open and loving arms even if sometimes their actions or statements let them down. They no who they are and they are comfortable with that, certain in their love with one another and sure in the knowledge they’ve done the best they possibly could to raise their son as they feel was right. This pair is the center to which everyone else revolves, and without them anchoring the proceedings there is the distinct reality a lot of the drama presented could have become pessimistic and overbearing.
As I’ve said, all of the actors are just plain wonderful here. Broadbent and Sheen sparkle in a way that cannot be easily put into words, often saying so very little while expressing so very much. Wight dominates his few scenes in the picture, sharing a moment of quiet desolation after getting verbally spanked by Manville that ripped me in two. Maltman, Fernandez and Bradley are all quite memorable, while the great Imelda Staunton opens the film with a pair of unforgettable and shattering scenes that intimately set the stage for what is next to come.
But back to Manville. Ever since this movie debuted at Cannes last May I’ve heard how amazing she was in this, that she had delivered a timeless performance sure to be remembered for quite some time. This is one time when the hype hasn’t been a bunch of hot air. In fact, there should have been even more of it. The woman is extraordinary in this movie, diving to depths and mining emotions that had me spellbound. As the camera lingers upon her at the end the changes encompassing her face tore me to pieces, leaving me in such a state I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. Manville is brilliant, no two ways about it, her Mary a character I will probably never forget.
Another Year is an experience unlike almost other. The word is showcases might be in London, might be filled with British mores and mannerisms, but what it is talking about in regards to friendship, family and life is beyond universal. It speaks to truths that apply to just about everyone, Mike Leigh and his company looking at the good, the bad, the great and the in-between and doing it in a way that is profound as it is moving.
Film Rating: êêê1/2 (out of 4)
Additional Links
