The Deep Blue Sea: A Romance Untamed

The Deep Blue Sea

Directed By: Terrence Davies

Written By: Terrence Davies, adapted from the play by Terrence Rattigan

Starring: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale, and Ann Mitchell

Director of Photography: Florian Hoffmeister, Editor: David Charap, Production Designer: James Merifield

            With the cinema of Terrence Davies, sometimes all it takes is one shot. The British director can say it all with one marvelous stroke of cinematic precision. In his latest feature, The Deep Blue Sea, it comes quite early. During the film’s abstract, almost wordless prologue, we see at one point the camera swirl around lovers Hester and Freddie, naked in bed, their bodies so perfectly aligned, they look like two puzzle pieces coming together. Halfway through the shot, Davies slowly cross-dissolves to the exact same shot, except we are back in the present, and Hester is alone. At this point, we don’t know what has happened to Freddie, but we can feel the tremendous sadness behind the eyes of Hester. She exalts a loss, which we learn is not one of physical proportions, but actually metaphysical; A love that simply cannot be kindled, with no hope of coming back.

            And in his first narrative film in over a decade, Davies captures the sublime, devastating tragedy of love in this adaptation of the play by Terrence Rafferty set in 1950s London. Davies has often been an autobiographical filmmaker—his first two features, Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, play more like memory totems (as does his 2008 essay film, Of Time and the City). You get the sense that there is still some of Davies’s past creeping into The Deep Blue Sea through the background visuals, but most of the film is dedicated to these characters, which Davies inhabits with beauty, and devastating emotions in this day long narrative.

We Need To Talk About Kevin: Mommy Issues

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Directed By: Lynne Ramsey

Written By: Lynne Ramsey and Rory Kinnear, based on the novel by Lionel Shriver

Starring: Tilda Swinton, John C. Riley, Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell, Rock Duer, and Ashley Gerasimovich

Director of Photography: Seamus McGarvey, Editor: Joe Bini, Production Designer: Judy Becker, Original Music: Jonny Greenwood

Rated: R for disturbing violence and a bit of sexuality.

            Thrown against the screen like paint against a canvas by Jackson Pollock, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a pop art explosion of subjective destruction. Nothing is subtle in Lynne Ramsey’s first film in almost a decade, its bold colors captured on screen without finesse and layered with abstract compositions that clash against each other like runaway trains. Ms. Ramsey’s film feels more indebted to the work of Tony Scott and Michael Bay than any art house, which may drive some out of the theaters, but its all centered around her extremely sly and brash narrative, focusing on a mother and her very troubled little son.

            Adapted by Ms. Ramsey and Rory Kinnear from the novel by Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin follows a mother in the wake of a high school killing spree. But she’s not the mother of one of the slain children; her son is the killer. It’s tricky and what could be banal melodramatic material for a film, but Ms. Ramsey, whose previous films include Ratcatcher and Monvern Caller, is not one to play things simple. Ms. Shriver’s novel is a series of letters to her husband following the tragedy, and Ms. Ramsey abandons all similarity to a film that makes it the subjective experience of a mind that has been fragmented and shattered.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: A Lone Wolf, Hunting His Own Pack

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Directed By: Tomas Alfredson

Written By: Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor, based on the novel by John le Carre

Starring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, David Dencik, Ciaran Hinds, Kathy Burke, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Tom Hardy.

Director of Photography: Hoyte Van Hoytema, Editor: Dino Jonsater, Production Designer: Maria Djurkovic, Original Music: Alberto Iglesias

Rated: R for language and some brief violence.

            When it comes to spies and the Cold War, especially across the pond in the United Kingdom, no name is more famous than James Bond. The Ian Fleming character is suave, sexy, dangerous, reckless, and everything the people want in their heroes. And then there’s George Smiley, the quiet and extremely reserved hero of a trilogy of novels by Britain’s other finest, John le Carré’. In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley never shoots a gun, much less leave the apartments he works at. He’s not particularly charismatic and women seem nonexistent to him. He’s not even part of MI6—he’s retired. But he gets the job done, and the job no one wants to take on.

            Mr. le Carré’s novels are exacting and meticulous, and the latest adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy attempts a faithful preservation of the spirit of his novel. Having not read the novel, nor seen the Alec Guinness led miniseries from 1979, I went into Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with little idea how the Cold War tale would play out. Those expecting a James Bond will be severely disappointed, but it is in the details—the stern faces that rarely tell the truth, the subtle shifts in dialogue that unveil information, and the meticulous details of the environment that reveal secrets—that director Tomas Alfredson and his truly talented crafters bring to the film that reveal a number of pleasures.

Margaret and the Dragon Tattoo: Or Recent Going-Ons in Film Criticism

            Two big stories relating to film critics are once again bringing up questions about the role of film criticism today. Because the world needs another piece on the state of film criticism, I found this a most dire subject to write on, though I think one story highlights the other, so bear with me. The two stories individually have been getting a lot of notoriety, one for its complete idiocy and the other for its idealistic advocacy. I’ll start with the more banal story first.

            If you picked up a New Yorker yesterday and flipped to the movie section, you may have read David Denby’s review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the highly anticipated adaptation of the Stieg Larson novel from Social Network director David Fincher and produced by Scott Rudin. In publishing the review, however, Denby broke perhaps the one big rule film critics have to follow: don’t publish your reviews until the studio says so, a so-called “embargo.” A series of emails, published by The Playlist, follow the back and forth between Denby and Rudin, which highlight the triviality on both sides. 

            To be frank, the whole thing feels like a schoolyard dick-measuring contest. But Rudin’s point to Denby that the film “has been badly damaged” by the early review is something to really scoff at. When you have a huge blockbuster like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, one knows people are going to go to it, whether or not reviews are good. How many teenage girls decided to skip out on Twilight: Breaking Dawn because David Edelstein gave it a middling review? Embargos on films let studios control the press on their films to give it the most exposure, but when it comes to a film that is going to be plastered on billboards everywhere, Rudin’s anger seems misplaced. 

            However, that doesn’t mean film critics don’t have their place, which brings me to the story of Margaret, Kenneth Lonergan’s ambitious masterpiece that came and went without much notice when released in September. Because of the film’s legal troubles, the distributor, Fox Searchlight more or less dumped the film, while the few major trades that did review somewhat dismissed it. But soon, other critics—Ben Keningsberg, Alison Wilmore, Matt Singer, Richard Brody, and Glenn Kenny, among others—caught up with it during its release and herald it a masterpiece, or at least something of merit worth more than two weeks and little advertizing. I managed to catch up with it during the second-to-last day of its theatrical release and went particularly over the moon as well.

            As Margaret disappeared from existence, however, #teammargaret, a Twitter hashtag to fight for the film’s existence was born. The whole thing played like an inside joke for film critics until last week, on the eve of the film’s UK release. With raves coming from London film critics, including a pair of five star reviews from The Guardian and The Telegraph, Slant film critic Jamie Christley launched a petition to Fox Searchlight to get the film back in discussion by making the film accessible for critics for their end-of-year awards. While that doesn’t necessarily help people who don’t get press invites, the wave of buzz led to staggering numbers in the United Kingdom--The Guardian reports a weekend gross of £4,595 ($7,170). “That number gave Margaret the highest screen average of any film on release, by some margin. This, despite the film only receiving one evening showtime per day (at 8pm), due to its hefty duration of 150 minutes.” Next weekend, Searchlight has decided to expand the film to ten screens in the UK, which rivals the entire number of screens it played in the United States.

Revisited: Steve McQueen Discusses the Politics of the Body in "Hunger"

A complete unknown in the film a few years ago, Steve McQueen has become an art house and festival favorite with only two films. This week sees the release of his highly anticipated film, Shame, which stars Michael Fassbender as a sex addict in New York. The film (reviewed at the New York Film Festival here) marks the second collaboration between the director and actor. Their first film, Hunger, debuted in 2008 to critical raves and won Mr. McQueen the Camera D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for best debut feature. Below is a piece on Mr. McQueen written during the film’s US release in March 2009. Hunger is available on DVD from the Criterion Collection, and I highly recommend it to anyone compelled about Shame.

Despite a similar name, director Steve McQueen is not the same one who rode the motorcycle in The Great Escape. The Black British artist has been working in visual arts for many years, but Hunger, a devastating and brutal film about the 1981 Irish Republican Army Hunger strikes led by Bobby Sands, is his first feature film. Lunged over in his chair with an astute pair of glasses, Mr. McQueen spoke sternly at the Meatpacking District Hotel where we met, occasionally sipping on a fresh tea and taking long pauses before every answer. Mr. McQueen explained that this was a story he needed to tell, “Young people talk about Abu Grahib and Guantanamo but don’t even know what happened in their own backyard 27 years ago.”

            Hunger is a mostly silent film that tells the story of the people within a prison known in the United Kingdom as “The Maze,” where a number of IRA prisoners participated in a series of dirty protests (no cleaning or shaving) and eventually turned into a hunger strike. The purpose? To regain their status as political prisoners, instead of simply regular criminals.

Tyrannosaur: Power in Faith; Peril in Reality

Tyrannosaur

Written and Directed By: Paddy Considine

Starring: Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, and Eddie Marsan

Director of Photography: Erik Wilson, Editor: Pia Di Ciaula, Production Designer: Simon Rogers, Original Music: Dan Baker and Chris Baldwin

Rated: Unrated, but brutal violence and explicatives throughout.

            Bad things are all around the world of Paddy Considine’s Trannosaur, which begins with a dog being kicked to death and ends in bloody violence. The gray skies pepper this grisly drama that is more of a punch to the gut as it observes the lives of two people living in a brutal world. Mr. Considne, a great actor known for roles in In America and The Bourne Ultimatum, brings the same aesthetic to his writing and directing as his acting: everything is raw and unfiltered, as he explores a story of faith.

            The film begins with Joseph (Peter Mullan), slowly banging a bat against his head, as if trying to smash the demons of his past back into his head. Joseph lives alone in a small English town (as someone mostly unfamiliar with the country, it’s very difficult to say if it’s a particular region) where he mostly drinks, swears, and beats people to a bloody pulp. His only friend is a young kid who lives across the street with an unsympathetic mother and a dangerous boyfriend. After one particularly nasty day, Joseph runs into a donation store where a middle-aged Christian woman named Hannah works.

New York Film Festival: Steve McQueen's Shame

Shame

A Film By Steve McQueen

United Kingdom/United States

            Shame, the second feature from British artist Steve McQueen, opens on a shot from top down on its main character, Brandon, sprawled along his bed. But he only takes up half the frame, the other half highlighting his empty grayish blue sheets. The painterly quality of this image is of course no surprise to those who know Mr. McQueen, a conceptual artists that has only recently moved into filmmaking. But it also highlights the emptiness that surrounds Brandon, who, in a world where he can have anything, still finds himself longing for something, anything, to fill the void of his life.

            Mr. McQueen’s first film, Hunger, was an audaciously bold and formalistically polarizing debut that followed the British IRA hunger strikes in the late 1970s. Mr. McQueen, uninterested in politics, focused on the control and degradation of the body, and the mental power to command such an organism. It was also the first film to introduce us to Michael Fassbender, who went on to starring roles in Fish Tank, Jane Eyre, and A Dangerous Method, who plays Brandon in Shame. And if Hunger was about the complete control of the body, Shame is about a body that constantly feeds in order to keep the mental state from absolute disaster.

New York Film Festival: Simon Curtis's My Week With Marilyn (Centerpiece Selection)

My Week With Marilyn (Centerpiece Selection)

A Film By Simon Curtis

United Kingdom

            My Week With Marilyn, a messy comedy of sorts that’s more enamored at its star than it needs to be, opens with a recreation of a song and dance number from There’s No Business Like Show Business. There’s Marilyn Monroe, all jazzed up, singing “Heat Wave.” We then break out of it and into the cinema onto the face of the young Colin Clark. He looks up in awe in the way that us plebeians always glorify our stars, and if you don’t understand his love, then you can’t understand Ms. Monroe.

            That’s not to put down the great star who made splashes whether on screen or off, becoming one of the most recognizable names and faces of her era. Like Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles, My Week With Marilyn attempts to view a giant star through the eyes of a small man who can only see the genius. The similarities end there, despite a tonal disposition to direct everything with a light foot and a skip in the wind. Some of this comes from issues with the script by Adrian Hodges, based on a pair of memoirs by Mr. Clark (yes two whole memoirs for one summer with a star!) and director Simon Curtis, who isn’t exactly sure how to handle the more serious moments. But much of the issue is the perspective of the film itself, which tries to throw Ms. Monroe from such a limited point of view, instead of giving us real access to the person behind the face.

New York Film Festival: David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method (Gala Presentation)

A Film By David Cronenberg

United Kingdom/Canada/Germany

            Cinema and psychoanalysis have a long history together, as the new technology and the striking new school of thought both began and evolved during the turn of the 20^th century. And since the 1970s, psychoanalysis has been used in film theory to explore films in new light, where characters once thought to be crazy are instead explored within their Freudian terms of wanting to return the womb or whatnot (Classic Hollywood seems ripe with metaphors for sex looking back).

            So what psychoanalysis can we read on the makers of psychoanalysis? That certainly sounds like an interesting question for David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, a stately and occasionally involving piece on the history of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, as well as the woman that changed everything. On first appearances, Mr. Cronenberg, known for his more graphically violent films from Videodrome, to Crash, to A History of Violence, might seem like the wrong choice for this stately work from screenwriter Christopher Hampton (adapting his own play The Talking Cure, that adapted from the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr). But thematically, this is a work through and through by Mr. Cronenberg, exploring how an idea can transform, disfigure, and infect the body.

Senna: A Search for God on the Raceway

Senna

Directed By: Asif Kapadia

Written By: Manish Pandey

Featuring: Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost

Editors: Chris King, Gregers Sall, Original Music: Antonio Pinto

Rated: PG-13 for language and a few, brief, shocking images.

            I’m a baseball fan (particularly a Minnesota Twins fan). When asked by others, what exactly I love about baseball though, I’m often at a loss for words. How does one explain either the enjoyment of watching a sport, or even more particularly playing a sport? You just have to do it to really understand, but even then, the subjectivity is impossible to correlate.

            For Ayrton Senna, the most famous Formula One racer of all time (we’ll leave the debate of whether it can be considered a sport for another time), it is impossible to truly understand what motivated him as he raced around sharp corners with a recklessness never seen by any other driver. As he explains after one race, “I felt closer to God at that moment than any other in my life.” Can the secret to the love of sports, or speed in this manner, be a mystical connection of some sort? An ecstasy that is otherwise impossible to find?  That’s part of the mystery surrounding Mr. Senna, who is the profile of a new documentary entitled Senna, exploring the life and times of the famous driver.

Attack the Block: Slumdog Alien Killers

Attack the Block

Written and Directed By: Joe Cornish

Starring: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail, Nick Frost, and Luke Treadaway.

Director of Photography: Thomas Townend, Editor: Jonathan Amos, Production Designer: Marcus Rowland, Original Music: Steven Price

Rated: R for the stuff wanna be gangsters do, as well as heavy sci-fi violence.

            In the usual alien invasion movie, we are privileged to see the response of the few and the proud that have the capabilities of taking on the evil invaders: the secret lairs of the Men in Black, the faithless preacher rescuing his family in Signs, or the president in a fighter jet in Independence Day. But what about those who don’t even register on our radar during such an attack? The nobodies living on the fringe of society, who are often the extras being thrown around by explosions?

            That’s the premise for Attack the Block, a British dark satire set around an alien invasion in South London. Our heroes are not the people we usually identify with; they're petty thieves who aspire to be gangsters, and use slang that is more or less incomprehensible. While it’s not the most unique premise in the world, director Joe Cornish treats it with gusto and satire, with more laughs than scares and more thrills than themes. Mr. Cornish weaves his camera through the dark alleys, making for a night of havoc across the streets of London.

The Trip: Five Course Meal, Hold the Pleasanty

The Trip
Directed By: Michael Winterbottom

Starring: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon

Director of Photography: Ben Smithard

Rated: Not Rated, but plenty of foul language.

            The Trip is the latest collaboration between director Michael Winterbottom and British comedian Steve Coogan. The duo have been perfect compliments for each other in the past—Mr. Winterbottom has a ironic and meta-textual obseesion with his humor, which Mr. Coogan matches with his under the breath jabs and self-deprecating tone. But it’s always been Mr. Winterbottom that drives the films. 24 Hour Party People would not be as memorable without his strange collision of history and fantasy, and his adaptation of Tristram Shandy perfectly encapsulates the tone of the novel by using a narrative structure similar to a set of Russian dolls.

            And that’s the main difference in The Trip, a mostly improvised comedy starring Mr. Coogan, as well as Rob Brydon, who starred with him in Tristram Shandy. The film’s narrative is paper thin, but Mr. Coogan and Mr. Brydon are natural together that they don’t really care for one, and Mr. Winterbotton has no agenda here but to capture their absurdity. And while The Trip never breaks ground in terms of really exploring these characters, the comedians are so deliciously fun it’s hard not to turn away.

The Arbor: A Place of Pain, Heard but Not Seen

The Arbor

Directed By: Clio Barnard

Featuring: Andrea Dunbar, Manjinder Virk, Christine Bottomley

Director of Photography: Ole Bratt Birkeland, Editors: Nick Fenton and Daniel Goddard, Production Designer: Matthew Button, Original Music: Harry Escott and Molly Nyman

Rated: Not Rated, but violent language and a lot of talk of life at its most horrifying.

            The old adage about writing is “write what you know.” Many people take this too much to heart, and thus the number of novels, plays, and films about 20-somethings trying to write have becomes more than a cliché but instead a nuisance. But Andrea Dunbar never had that problem, and her play, The Arbor, is instead a perilously disturbing drama about growing up in a slum in Yorkshire.

            But director Clio Barnard’s film The Arbor is not an adaptation of Ms. Dunbar’s groundbreaking play, but a documentary of some sorts, and an exploration of the life around that area. Part documentary, part feature film, and all fascinating, The Arbor explores the life of Ms. Dunbar and her children, in particular one whose path recreated the mistakes of her mother.

Paul: He Not Only Comes In Peace, His Weed is Great Too!

Paul

Directed By: Greg Motolla

Written By: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, the voice of Seth Rogen, Kristin Wigg, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Blythe Danner, and a slew of cameos worth the surprise

Director of Photography: Lawrence Sher, Editor: Chris Dickens, Production Designer: Jefferson Sage, Original Music: David Arnold

            Creating alien beings for films has made for some of the most unique and glorious creatures in our culture. The double-mouthed, gigantic and sleek black monster of Alien, the cute and cuddly brown midget of E.T., and the hairy beast that will always beat all other hairy beasts—Chewbacca. And then there’s the titular character of Paul. Gray-color skinned, with a large head, and fashioning slacker shorts and sandals, Paul is perhaps the strangest character of the bunch, especially when you consider he is voiced by Seth Rogen. But a stoner, pop culture obsessed alien fits perfects in the world of Paul, which is more or less a stoner road trip movie.

            What makes Paul different from the world of Superbad (Directed by Paul’s helmer Greg Motolla) or the like is that it has a sci-fi element, and its extremely nostalgic toward some of the classics of the genre, including but not limited to Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Predator. And what makes Paul a decently enjoyable, if not perfect ride, is the nostalgia and heart at the center of this comedy.

Jane Eyre: Men Aren't The Only Thing Out to Get This Poor Girl

Jane Eyre

Directed By: Cary Fukunaga

Written By: Moira Buffini (Based on the novel by Charlotte Bronte)

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Judi Dench, and Sally Hawkins

Director of Photography: Adriano Goldman, Editor: Melanie Oliver, Production Designer: Will Hughes-Jones, Original Music: Dario Marionelli

Rated: PG-13, for brief violence, and some other strange happenings

            Recollections of the name Jane Eyre may conjur many things for different people. Perhaps some will think about their college or perhaps high school years reading the novel, with its quick wit and gorgeous prose by Charlotte Bronte. Others may picture the numerous film adaptations—either William Hurt as Mr. Rochester or perhaps Orson Welles, and actresses like Charlotte Gainsbourg or Joan Fontaine in the role of the titular character. Call it my naïveté or simply lack of serious intellectual pursuits, but I have never seen anything related to Ms. Bronte’s now famous novel. Jane Eyre has been a missing link on my education (oh what do they teach these days!), and thus I went into this latest version as an “Eyre-gin,” so to say.

            So colored me surprised to not find another girl caught up in marriage pursuits, as is a favorite story of Ms. Bronte’s 19^th century counterpart Jane Austin. Of course, that is the endgame in Jane Eyre, but through the eyes of Cary Fukunaga, Jane Eyre is darker than witty, more gruesome and haunting than charming and delightful. Sure it has its gorgeous moments, but its also creepy and effecting in its drab presentation and almost lifeless landscapes.

NYFF Interview: Mike Leigh and Cast (Another Year)

Festival Director Richard Pena, Leslie Manville, Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Georgina Lowe, and Mike Leigh

Since 1988’s High Hopes came to American audiences, the British filmmaker Mike Leigh has been considered one of the most dynamic curiosities in contemporary cinema. Starting with a cast and no script, developing characters’ entries lives before beginning to write one word, and, as this interview shows, condescending to members of the general press, Mr. Leigh makes films that truly touch on the entirety of human emotion, whether in its darkness or exuberance. Another Year, his latest film, finds a bit of both, which stars Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen as a happy married couple that play a surrogate mother and father to the people that enter their homes, most notably the talkative boundless Mary, in a career-turning performance from Leslie Manville. At the NYFF press conference, Mr. Leigh sat down with both his cast and his producer Georgina Lowe to discuss the creation of his film, if also to deride some critics about writing about him.

Leslie, Jim, and Ruth—You’ve all worked with Mike over the years, in leading roles. On Vera Drake and Happy-Go-Lucky, you had people who hadn’t been in lead roles before with Imeldas Staunton and Sally Hawkins. What has changed over the years with the working method?

Leslie Manville: I don’t think it really has changed over the years. I suppose it’s more about the time you had to make a film as opposed to the early days when Mike was making films for the BBC and Channel 4. So there’s more time now. But really the way we work together and collaborate and create the film hasn’t really changed.

Jim Broadbent: Absolutely the basic structure remains very much the same. I’d say the real only change, having done it quite a few times before. The process isn’t as much as a voyage of discovery, as it kind of was in the early days. The actual working has been very consistent.

Ruth Sheen: I think the main thing is that we’re all older.

Broadbent: I’m not older!

Sheen: The process is the same.

Broadbent: I thought you were going to say older and wiser and more depth and life and spirit…As we’re older, the filling in the back story for the characters takes a lot longer. When we were first working with Mike, I was in my 20s, and the characters were in their 20s, so it didn’t take long to fill in the years. But when you get to 60, it can take quite a long time.

What was the germ of the film? Did you start with the relationship between Leslie’s character and Jim and Ruth’s, or was it broader than that?

Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh: The actual germ of the film is impossible, because I can never talk about “a germ” because these films, and this film is no exception, come out of ongoing occupations at times. Apart from anything else, as far as I’m concerned, having made Happy-Go-Lucky which is pretty much about young-ish people, I wanted to start from where we are. It’s about a lot of things, this film, and it’s hard to talk about it in a simple way from that. But it comes from a joy and pain of life I wanted to show. As to the actual mechanical second part of the question, as you know from the film, Mary’s relationship is something that’s happened much later in their history. In fact, the chronology is always logical. We actually started with Tom’s relationship with his brother Ronnie, and the first actor I started working with at all, is Ronnie [David Bradley] because he’s some years older than that. So it was the logic of their lives. Thus Gerry entered their lives quite a bit down the line. While that was all being developed, I was inventing this horrendous life with Mary.

In the film, Tom and Gerry’s home seems like a place of nurturing, very similar to their garden. Was this a theme you wanted to design?

Leigh: It’s not really a question. You’re pretty much defining one of the central things the film is about. It’s about nurturing, it’s about caring, it’s about those who need and those who are able, in various ways, give them what they want. And then there’s a moral dilemma of where you draw the line, where do you protect yourself from all of those. That’s what it’s all about. And of course the relationship between nurturing and people and their relationship with the Earth, with the environment and the planet is implicitly there, in a way their organic people. I had a notion that I wanted to deal with environmentalists but you can’t make a dramatic film about environmentalists. It’d be turgid.

Leslie Manville, Jim Broadbent, and Ruth Sheen

There seems to be a similarity between Mary and Beverly from Abigail’s Party. Could you talk about that relationship?

Leigh: Well I think they are very different kinds of films actually. I don’t think there’s much worth discussing that relationship.

Manville: It’s not certainly something we would think of doing.

Leigh: We’ve never done that before.

Manville: No we haven’t…maybe we should. But it’s certainly something we hadn’t thought of replicating. It’s not the agenda. The agenda is to create a fresh new character obviously and she where she goes. But you saw similarities than that’s your prerogative.

Leigh: I apologize, but I feel a bit of a cul-de-sac question really. I can’t really see the connection, and it’s never occurred to us, and I should give it no more thought.

When did you develop the idea of the seasons to have these four very specific vignettes at these four very specific times?

Leigh: Well it’s integral in the conception of the film really. It’s hard to think of “when” it was. It seems like a logical thing to do really.

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NYFF Review: Another Year

Another Year

Directed By Mike Leigh

United Kingdom

            Mike Leigh has a way of capturing human emotions and gestures that few other directors ever have the nuance to reach. A certain pause, or a glance, or a pan of the camera, speak volumes in the British directors work. In the shocking opening scene of Naked, we aren’t sure if the woman in the beginning is enjoying her sexual encounter to begin with or it simply turns at some point; Mr. Leigh enjoys those ambiguous lines, and his characters are often not characters as much as they are living, breathing human beings.

            So chuck his latest, Another Year, up to the same category of his other greats, which include Vera Drake, Secrets & Lies, and his most recent work, Happy-Go-Lucky. The beautiful thing about Mr. Leigh is that while no film tackles the same ideas on class, gender, or existentialism, they are all presented through a clear and subtle way that no director can match. Part of that is Mr. Leigh’s highly-regarded process, in which he creates the characters entire lives with the actors before ever beginning to write down a script.

            You can definitely see that process all over Another Year, which is basically set over four day or two day long vignettes in four different seasons. All four revolve mainly around the home of the perfectly named Tom and Gerri, played by Leigh regulars Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen. Tom and Gerri are the perfect couple in their happiness—they garden together, eat together, and seem to have got everything they need in life. Yet while Tom and Gerri provide the atmosphere for the film, a somewhat light-hearted and nurturing environment for whoever stops by their door in the suburbs of London, the real spark of the film is Gerri’s co-worker Mary, played with an electric ferocity by Leslie Manville.

            When Mary first talks about her life to Gerri while sitting at a bar after work, she cannot stop talking about how happy her life is—everything seems to be going for her, if not quite perfectly, to a satisfactory point. The problem is that Mary talks a lot, and uses talk to hide from her truths, even from herself. Thus over the four seasons, we watch Mary go from bad to worse, and Ms. Manville transform herself ever so slowly, bringing almost a completely new woman to each world. Mr. Leigh’s camera shifts onto the human faces for the important reactions—none of it is showy, but all of it is necessary.

            Yet to say Mary, and Ms. Manville’s performance, is the highlight of the film is to obscure the wonders that make up Another Year. Mr. Leigh rarely provides context, or does it very slowly, for each of the four vignettes, and each is filled with new characters that could easily have there own stories. There’s Tom’s old friend Ken, who’s overweight sight is only the first of many issues he hides under. There’s the son Joe, who is quite happy where he is, although without a girlfriend, something Mary at one point feels set on changing. And there’s Ronnie, Tom’s older brother, who simply seems to silently mock the world around him. Mr. Leigh brings these people on not as plot devices, but as ranges of human empathy and emotion.

            If Happy-Go-Lucky was all about how we create our own happiness, Another Year is about how we foster happiness in others. The film could have easily put its perspective from Mary, but the majority of the film is about how Tom and Gerri respond to the accomplishments and suffering of others, and how to best foster those, just like their vegetable plants. Mr. Leigh, is interested in how people judge and be judged, even in a loving environment. And like the seasons, our views of both others and ourselves is always changing, always recurring, and always in need of the nurture of love.