Recent Film: Another Year

June 28, 2011 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent are very content.

Judging by his last two films, Happy-Go-Lucky and Another Year, Mike Leigh has quietly become one of the most effective horror film directors in the world, though, of course, not in any typical sense. Always fond of grotesque caricature, Leigh has upped the ante even further recently, finding life at its cruelest, homing in on those deluded by dreams and those who have none, and playing with their wounds.

In Another Year, Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) are a long-married British couple who surround their lives with an assortment of tormented souls. Sure, they can’t get away from their depressing relatives, including Tom’s drunk, taciturn brother Ronnie (David Bradley) and combustible nephew Carl (Martin Savage), but they seem to invite sad-sack friends into their lives not entirely due to kindness but to reassure themselves of their middle-class contentedness. Their son, Joe, who seems similarly to tolerate those who increase his own self-worth, is hit on repeatedly by Gerri’s middle-age alcoholic friend, Mary (Lesley Manville). Neither encouraging nor discouraging, he stoically allows Mary to lavish attention on him, which can bring no good to her.

Introduced into this backdrop is Joe’s new girlfriend, Katie (Karina Fernandez), an ebullient young woman who’s full of life, essentially the polar opposite of Mary’s pathetic hopelessness. Like the character of Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky, who was described by most critics as “spirited” or “bright” rather than clueless, which is what she is, Katie’s enthusiasm is heightened to the point of insensitivity, almost without regard for others. Despite working as an occupational therapist, which you would assume would giver her a perspective beyond herself, she has none. Late in the film, she and Joe discuss a romantic trip abroad together in front of Mary, who’s more broken than usual. As the depressed woman endures a massacre of dashed hopes, Joe and Katie make it clear that they will become just like his parents. It’s almost sinister.•

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