Enjoy It While It Lasts
Project 365 here 365Pieces
Dec 18th, 2010 @ 3:24 am
Just Another Year
Yo. Sorry I’ve been neglecting this blog. Maybe you’ve missed me, maybe you haven’t. Anyway, I have seen quite a few great films since November and they’re all worthy of a post of their own so here’s the first of them.
A friend of mine, Lorna, did the same thing that Rachel did and took me to see a movie as a birthday gift. Luckily, we were both sort of dying to see this film so it all worked out well in the end. Well, apart from the freezing cold day we went to see it and Lorna almost dying of hypothermia in the cinema. But you know, I was fine so don’t worry!
The thing with Mike Leigh is that you either like him or you don’t. I’m one of the people who love him. I’ve only seen three of his films (Vera Drake, Happy-Go-Lucky and Another Year) but it’s evident that this man is a genius. His films are perfect art-house bait; quiet, dialogue-heavy, personal, often cynical, well acted and always beautifully shot.
While his last film, Happy-Go-Lucky, was a tad more optimistic than the rest, Leigh is right back to his usual cynical way of looking at life with Another Year. From the off-set it seems like he’s sticking with this new found optimism but by the end of the film I hated happy people and wanted to curl up into a ball of slush and cry. See the film and you’ll understand.
It follows the lives of Tom and Gerri, a happily married couple, and their interactions with their various friends over the course of one year. Yup, he really called them Tom and Gerri. The film is divided into four sections, in accordance with the seasons.
Throughout the film we meet Ken, Tom’s alcoholic friend, a depressed housewife (played wonderfully by Imelda Staunton) to whom Gerri provides therapy (this story could have been taken to great places but Leigh only uses it to show Gerri at work, a real pity), Tom’s brother Rodney, Gerri and Tom’s son Joseph and, of course, their friend Mary. Played by Leslie Manville in one of the performances of the year (everyone’s saying it, but it’s true), Mary is a broken woman who’s been divorced and never really gotten over it. She is the most complex character in the film and Leigh was right to make the film as much about her as it is about the central couple.
It really seems that Gerri and Tom are the only happy characters in the film, doesn’t it? Well it’s because they are. The idea is that Tom and Gerri are the sun (central, unchanging and always happy) and their friends are planets; volatile and always changing and reliant on the couple. This set up never begins to grate on you, however, because of the variety and the complexity of the characters it introduces. While the central couple are boring at times, this works in favour of the film. Their friends need something stable in their lives and Gerri and Tom provide that service. It’s a simple, yet deadly effective way to move the story along.
This is not to say that Gerri and Tom are nice people. Sure, they’re happy and live a good life, but towards the middle of the film we see the sublte (and some not so sublte) differences in the way they treat their friends if they become a problem for them. For example, when Mary shows dislike towards Joe’s new girlfriend, Gerri and Tom essentially tell Mary to fuck off and not bother them again. After years of friendship. One of the more subtle ways in which they do this is (during a barbeque to celebrate a friend of theirs having a baby) when they insist on moving away from Mary when she lights a cigarette. There is no need for all of them to move to the other side of the garden, yet they do, and insist she finish her cigarette.
Ruth Sheen who plays Gerri really shines in this scene as a kind yet subtley cruel woman. To begin with, I felt that her acting was quite wooden but as the film progressed it dawned on me at how deceptive her performance was. She is supportive and helpful but her smugness seeps through in the most affecting ways. The same can be said for Jum Broadbent’s character Tom. He is less subtle about his dislike of Mary, but his performance is noteworthy for the pity he shows for everyone else. He perfectly expresses an old man’s irritation at someone younger than him.
The real applause should be held for Lesley Manville though. She just steals every scene she is in as Mary. She is the character whom the couple try to support the most, and the character whom they come down the hardest on. Her performance is that of great desperation, anxiety, sadness and ultimately a sense of loss. The character of Mary is essentially a train-wreck but Manville gives her depth beyond that of what was written for her character.
I’m doing this film no justice with this incoherent review, but believe me, this film is something else. So little happens in the film but so much becomes of the little events that do happen. That takes skill and Leigh is evidently ana absolute master at his art. He has written arguably the best screenplay of the year (and easily the best of his career). Its subtlety is something that still has me thinking about the various events of the film a month after seeing it. He has directed two (and maybe three) truly resonant performances in one of the films of the year. How this film went home empty-handed from Cannes is beyond me.
There are fights. There is a funeral. There are many glasses of wine. There are laughs. There are also tears. There is silence. And it is the silence that finally makes this film a masterpiece. The final shot of the film is so beautifully executed (and once again I use that word, subtle) that I can still see it now. It is easily the most haunting shot of the year and, along with the preceding exchanges between Ronny and Mary, one of the saddest moments in a film I have ever seen. Manville had the entire cinema frozen in their seats and even after the credits began to roll, no one moved for at least 15 seconds. It is perfectly put here: ”a lifetime of pain, loneliness and resignation without uttering a sound”.
Many things can be said about this film and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Another Year is a film about many things but it all comes down to life and people trying to come to terms with the cards they have been dealt. It has to be seen to be believed and no amount of praise on my behalf is going to do this film justice. See it when it comes out on DVD because I think it’s finished its run in Ireland.
4.5/5
