NYFF 2010: Another Year
Why it took me so long to watch the films of Mike Leigh is really unexplainable. Embarrassingly, the first film of his I saw was Happy Go Lucky during the 2008 season and my interest was captured by a filmmaking style unfamiliar to me at that point. After that I went on to borrow Vera Drake from a friend and also add some titles to my Netflix queue including Naked, Secrets and Lies and All or Nothing. I had found one of my favorite directors of the last twenty years of whom I had just gotten to know for the last two. One film after the next, the intelligent and humorous scripts, impeccable performances and intuitive direction all had me locked in from beginning to end.
The most appealing of Leigh's directorial trademarks are the performances of his leading ladies. Brenda Blethyn in Secrets and Lies, Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake and Sally Hawkins in Happy Go Lucky all give career-best and trophy-worthy work. Lesley Manville in Another Year is no exception. Mary, her character in this film, is the most interesting and engrossing character in 2010 thus far. The character has what I call "The Joker Effect" in that when she is on the screen she dominates and when she is not I can't help but think about her.
Mary is a lonely, middle-aged woman who has few friends outside of her co worker Gerri (Ruth Sheen) and Gerri's husband Tom (Jim Broadbent). Mary has practically become a part of the family and is invited to most family outings. The couple has a thirty-year-old son, and we are also introduced to a few random friends throughout. Another Year is split into the four seasons, and in each one, gives us an intricate look into the lives of this family and their friends. Mike Leigh is a master of creating rich characters and then stripping them apart as the film goes along until they reach a fever-pitch climax. The climax here is less intense than Leigh's other films (remember the revelations scene in Secrets and Lies or the final confrontation in Happy Go Lucky) but I think the film is all the better for it.
While all the characters are as fleshed out as in Leigh's finest works, I don't think he has written too many better characters than Mary. She is the ultimate symbol of loneliness, despair and bottled-up jealousy. She yearns for what her co-worker has and when she fails to fulfill her needs she resorts to the bottle. However, Mike Leigh is much too fine a writer and Manville too gifted an actress to just make her the typical miserable alcoholic we have seen plenty of times before. Mary's genuine desperation warrants all the sympathy and empathy she will receive from audiences this winter.
Although Mary is the centerpiece all of the characters bring their own personal issues to the central theme. The title of the film sums up the process of growing old. There are certain places you can't go and things you can't do anymore. Life becomes more and more routine and the less family and friends you have to talk to and pick you up the more meaningless it all seems. Every year just feels like "another year". In the opening scene, a character played by Imelda Staunton is asked how happy she is on a scale from one to ten and quickly responds one. She is then told that change is difficult, only to immediately respond that "nothing changes". Staunton has not looked sadder since her arrest in Vera Drake.
At face value it appears Tom, Gerri and their son are all content in life. An audience member asked Mike Leigh during the Q&A why he decided to all of a sudden put a number of happy characters without fault into his film since his mo is usually that all of his characters seem to have at least some problems to deal with. To this Leigh responded something to the tune of "If you truly believe these characters to be without fault I lament your naivety". I personally think that they come off that way because of what seems like an obligation to entertain Mary and their other depressed peers.
At 26 years old, this film about aging and life during the twilight years spoke to me personally more so than perhaps any film I have seen since A Serious Man. This is simply a majestic work from a legendary director and one of the year's finest offerings.
5/5
October 14th, 2010 - 21:25
Matthew, even though I’ve been watching Mike Leigh’s films since Life is Sweet, I know what you mean about discovering a director after years of output. If you haven’t watched his back catalogue going as far back as his BBC tele-plays, I strongly suggest doing so. Starting from the beginning and watching High Hopes and Life Is Sweet as well. Then comes Naked and you are more or less caught up. This is simply one of the best filmmakers in existence.
October 16th, 2010 - 11:43
Considering I can’t get enough of his work I plan on doing just that.