NYFF 2010: "Another Year"

Mike Leigh's casts, all about the glamour, as usual; from left, Jim Broadbent, Leslie Manville, Oliver Maltman in Another Year

One of my favorite critical observations, one I go back to almost as frequently, if not more frequently, than Roberto Rossellini's pronouncement on late Chaplin, comes from the writer David Ilic, who remarked that the recordings by the British improvisational group AMM were "as alike and unalike as trees." As it happens, Ilic himself appears to have lifted that simile from Glen Sweeney, a founding member of the Third Ear Band (scorers of, among other films, Polanski's infamous MacBeth), who used the phrase to describe his outfit's output. There's a discussion of trees—cypresses, to be precise—in Abbas Kiarostami's new Certified Copy that goes into the implications of that simile in some depth, but...oh, my, where were we?

Ah, yes. As alike and unalike as trees. One could say the same about the films of British director Mike Leigh, and at this late stage of his career it seems that the alikeness is beginning to wear on certain critics. I'm not one of them, and I would (gently) counsel those who take him for granted that they ought not. Because nobody makes films that feel and play the way his do, for better or for worse, and after he's gone, it's doubtful that anybody else is going to. His deep-dish method of creation—involving intensive preparation with his actors and a huge amount of controlled and oft turned-over improvisation—has been much discussed in various venues; but as Leigh himself pointed out in the post-press-screening Q&A for the film the other day (during which various journalists donned all manner of metaphorical "kick me" signs which Leigh did not follow, but did acknowledge the existence of, let's say), it's the finished, polished product that finally counts. I found this particular product thoroughly engrossing, personally galvanizing, and a little problematic all at once. A thoroughly successful Leigh film, in other words, going by a certain yardstick.

The structure of the story is as simple and as obvious as life and/or death; it's right there in the title. Starting in the spring, it chronicles a year in the lives of thoroughly civilized old London couple Tom and Jerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), Jerri's troubled, over-drinking 50-something work colleague Mary (Leslie Manville), the couple's single, solid, slightly dull son Joe (Oliver Maltman), and a few others, most notably Tom's Hull-based pal Ken (Peter Wight), another hard drinker, if you will, and Tom's very quiet older brother Ronnie (David Bradley). Tom and Jerri are cheery, comfortable old lefties who've understood that they're not in a position to change the world anymore, and have gotten to be fine with that (there are times when I could see this film as an update on Leigh's 1988 High Hopes, in which a younger [obviously], punkier, leather-jacketed Sheen played one half of a more agitated couple). Mary's life, on the other hand, is one turmoil after another, and the couple's dealings with this frantic white-wine drunk eventually get one to wondering whether these nice settled folks are really all that nice. Because Mary is very clearly an alcoholic; not only is the A-word never once dropped in the film, Jerri, who's a therapist herself, never even suggests counseling or a support group to Mary until a hammer-dropping scene near the film's end. Then there's Ken, with his gigantic belly and his two cans of lager on the train up to London and his whinging monologues on how his local's now filling up with snotty awful young people. Physically, Wight comes off rather like conservative pundit Bill Bennett, but to tell you the God's honest truth, his character rather reminded me...of me, not much more than a year ago. (Awkward!) He's a mess, in any event, and Tom tries to tell him so...sort of. The couple are so damn polite, so damn indulgent, and all the while they're stifling their own feelings of put-upon-ness and resentment to the point that you understand they're passive-aggressively enabling Mary. It's a rather remarkable portrait of abnormal psych in the postmodern world. And it brims with little uncomfortably accurate touches. A more careless or inexperienced filmmaker would have brought the two drunks together for a romantic folly maybe, but Mary is vividly repelled by Ken in that exact way in which certain heterosexual drunks are with turned off by each other—call it "I may be a mess but I'm not that mess" syndrome. It is all rather terribly sad.

Lesley Manville's performance as Mary was recently described as a "hate-it-or-love-it turn" by Manohla Dargis in The New York Times; a friend with whom I saw the picture bristled a bit at the film's portrait entire of Mary, calling it cruel. I'm still taking that aspect of the film in, frankly; I was certainly incredibly impressed by the virtuosity of Manville's acting, particularly what she does with her face. Mary has a rather unhealthy romantic fixation on Tom and Jerri's son Joe, and when she ineptly flirts with him, she looks almost as coquettish as she wants to come off. When disappointment or rage hits, as it inevitably does, her face deflates, the lines on it seem to increase, she looks practically corpse-like. Like a corpse that's about to spit, to be exact. There is also sometimes a sense that Mary's drunken on-ness is a bit too vivid, approaching caricature-level; but for all I can tell at this moment, to perceive the performance that way may be some form of...denial? In any event, her work here makes me uncomfortable. As it is damn well meant to, I think.

Comments

[Stephen Whitty]

Thanks for this, Glenn. Still mulling over this one myself although I liked very much.

I must say, I don't quite know what there would be to hate in Lesley Manville's performance -- to me, she seemed absolutely perfect (which, of course, is also to say, at times almost unbearable). A single scene -- a single SHOT -- often showed many currents of emotion running through her face at once, emotions the character herself is unaware of.

And I'm interested in your reading of the couple as being, in a way, enablers. Still thinking of that -- I'm not sure whether they are, really, or if they're just being terribly nice, middle-upper-class British about things. Tell someone to stop drinking? Oh dear, that's a bit awkward, isn't it?

What I thought interesting, too was the way their approach to their problematic friends differed -- while Gerri, as a therapist, was much likely to listen, but reserve judgement, Tom the geologist just sort of dug in there bluntly, the way his machines dug into the soft London soil. (As when Mary complains that married men don't wear warning signs, and he snaps back, "Some wear a ring, though, don't they?")

[bill]

I just want to say that after a day trying to distract myself from mild turmoil by reading a lot of obnoxious, poser-led film conversations on-line, it's really, really nice to read a Glenn Kenny review of a Mike Leigh film.

Nicely done.

[Victor Morton]

I liked ANOTHER YEAR a bit more than you did, Glenn (self promoting link, 3rd capsule: http://vjmorton.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/tiff-10-capsules-day-5/) and saw a slightly different emphasis. But clearly there's the same kind of "well, what are we gonna do now that the proletariat has shown it isn't gonna rise up; damn proletariat" attitude in this Leigh film.

As for Manville, I'm definitely in the "love it" category -- she is playing a drunk who can function, but kinda loses her ability to hide her reactions when she's drunk. Her hatred of Karina Fernandez with the meant-to-be-subtle-but-aren't-really digs, and Fernandez's keeping-up-appearances reactions are pretty awesome.

[Victor Morton]

I didn't quite "catch" this part: "Mary is vividly repelled by Ken in that exact way in which certain heterosexual drunks are with turned off by each other—call it 'I may be a mess but I'm not that mess' syndrome."

Which ALSO is why Mary is interested in Joe -- she sees him as "moving up" -- and why she takes such offense at his interest in Fernandez and lack of interest in her. Her thinking is that "he's rejecting me as THAT mess and going for this goody two-shoes." Which manages to get it wrong, of course -- she's clearly an aunt figure to him, not even someone he could be theoretically interested in.

[DBLA]

Looking forward to seeing Leigh's latest tree. But what did Rossellini say about late Chaplin?

[Victor Morton]

Mr. Kenny is free to correct me, of course, but the famous Rossellini quote regarding Chaplin is that after seeing A KING IN NEW YORK, the Italian director called it "the work of a free man."

... with which, in a certain sense, it's impossible to disagree.

[James Keepnews]

Your description of Manville's performance -- "a bit too vivid, approaching caricature-level"-- is the danger lurking behind nearly all of Leigh's work and the (for lack of a better term) shorthand approach he and his actors build up his characters around. Superficially, they're an indulged gathering of tics, idiosyncrasies and potentially show-y, actor-y bit of business. But this is almost an aesthetic feint, since we've long since accepted these "superficial" aspects of character/ization once Leigh's best films' inexorable narrative momentum obtains. By the conclusions of Life is Sweet, Naked, Vera Drake, & bleeding cetera, those "tics" are well subsumed by that inexorability. And in the best performances in his films -- Jim Broadbent, Katrin Cartlidge, David Thewlis, Sally Hawkins and most especially for me, Timothy Spall -- those characters have been rendered quite vividly indeed, with an compassionate emotional veracity virtually unequaled in English-language film.

[Glenn Kenny]

@ DBLA: Yes, Victor Morton is correct. I invoked R.R.'s pronouncement in my writeup of "The Strange Case of Angelica," a bit below this one.

[Jaime]

@James: very well said. I'm tired of crix who (in reviews, in conversation) catch wind of caricature and their brain immediately goes into "ME NO LIKE!" mode. Caricature is an underrated form of portraiture. Underrated largely because it's been badly abused, but in the hands of someone like Leigh, it's considerably more organic than it might be otherwise. It's long been his practice to use outsized gestures and reaction shots from other characters to set viewers up with a certain mindset, but his examination continues inward and outward. Hence Mary is given countless soul-baring moments (oh, the final shot), and Gerri's tough-love bit is so very bracing. Not to mention the gallery of Jim Broadbent's reaction shots, which is a work of art by itself.

Needless to say, I loved the film.

[The Siren]

The Siren hereby outs herself as the friend who invoked the word "cruel." I meant the movie's portrait of Mary's loneliness and desperation and childlessness, shown in constant contrast to warm mumsy gardening cooking book-reading-in-bed has-a-son-who-turned-out-great Jerri. At times it seemed like a stacked deck; those aren't the only two options, family life and white-wine alcoholism (wonderful term). The movie is so powerful, especially Manville's performance (which I thought was a fucking marvel, I have NO problems with her acting, zero) that I wanted to protest to Mr. Leigh that some single fiftysomething women are quite happy.

But you do a great job of dissecting the complacency of the central couple, which may be leading them to stand back from all sorts of problems with people they ostensibly care about. I also wonder what kind of advice and support they'd been giving Ronnie about his son.

And I've known women like Mary, I know a couple who may yet turn into her. After digesting the movie for a while, I have to say, if it's cruel it's because the truth hurts. It's one hell of a movie.

[Jaime]

@ The Siren - of course, I would never accuse The Siren of the aforementioned critical brain-freeze!

That's some food for thought, though, what you say about this "happy-go-lucky" older couple and their effect on the people who are effectively their satellites, especially Ronnie (David Bradley, whose complete wonderfulness is likely to be overshadowed by the leading ladies and Broadbent). Wielding the double-edged scalpel as he always does, Leigh asks, "What have they done?" as well as "What more do you want from them?" But the enabling is troubling - the way Tom and Gerri practically stuff Mary and Ken with food and drink has an almost diabolical aspect. But look how Joe turned out. But, but, but...you could go all day.

Bradley is also Argus Filch, the comically curmudgeonly caretaker of Hogwarts! Not wildly miscast, here.

[James Keepnews]

From one Jamie to a Jaime -- word up, and needless to say, I won't miss a Leigh film once it wends it way down to us less festive types. I doubt I'm as supportive of any notion of caricature as you are, though I read you loud and clear, despite the fact that this is an increasingly standard knock on Leigh and his collaborator/actors. But I'm put in the mind of Daniel Clowes' brilliant short graphic tale "Caricature," which says more about the practice and its practitioners than anything I could cavil about in re: the form, here or elsewhere.

[Stephen Whitty]

@Siren

It's interesting that you pick up on Tom and Gerri's advice (or lack of it) to Ronnie about his son.

I spoke to Martin Savage, the actor who played Ronnie's son, and his own backstory for the character was that the boy had spent some time with Tom and Gerri, admired them, reached out to them -- and been coolly shut out. And that his realization of what his life could have been like, but was like, had colored everything that followed.

So, if the case is being made against T and G as clueless, if not uncaring -- not that I particularly want to push that particular charge too far -- here's one more bit of evidence.

Although I wouldn't single them out. I think most of the characters in this film are oblivious to others, to some extent, whether it's smoking around a newborn or giving a patronizing grin to an indigent immigrant client. I think, too often, we all are...