The Mike Leigh Poll

My problem with Another Year was that you know everything you need to know about a character as soon as they appear on screen and Leigh doesn't take them anywhere even mildly surprising - tricky to pull off with a believable character (Tom and Gerri), impossible to pull off with a caricature (Tom's brother Ronnie, Mary) and downright depressing in the case of a typical Leigh character like Ken.

The prologue with Imelda Staunton was the best thing in the film.

Secrets And Lies is the sort of film that justifies the entire British film industry all on it's own. also has one of the best final scenes and last lines i've ever seen. just a fantastic bit of work in every respect. didn't even consider myself much of a fan until i saw it.

yes, it's truly incredible.

i watched Topsy Turvy last night and loved it. Its pretty unique the way he lets the songs play out at full length so that towards the end of the film they actually take up at least half of the running time. It seems like something Rivette would do. I wonder if he's a Rivette fan? the last shot of Happy go Lucky seemed like an explicit ref to Celine et Julie... too.

jed mostly otm on AY. Condescending, sad to say.

How was it condescending?

It seems like something Rivette would do.

He sorta did do that with Haut bas fragile.

I guess I didn't find Lesley Manville's performance soul-crushingly real, but a bit o' vaudeville.

Leigh's closeups lingered on Manville's wrinkled face and dugs too often for my taste, and making her a quasi-alcoholic (white wine, of course) was facile. But Jim Broadbent didn't get enough credit for making his Good Guy credible. We've all known guys like this: we look for the traces of condescension and can't find them.

I wish he'd spent more time on the widower brother, present to demonstrate how the ol' Stiff Upper Lip ethos used to function – and rot. OTM about Imelda Staunton, who almost belted me out of the room.

I haven't seen Haut Bas Fragile but that makes sense. I thought the film seemed Rivettian without being able to pinpoint a specific example.

xxpost yes i didn't believe in the Manville performance at all which is sad because i think i could have believed the character. The conversation (/not-conversation) between Ronnie and Mary is totally unbelievable.

No, I believed that scene, but I was tired of her by then.

Overall I don't fault her performance so much as the conception of the character.

oh right, i feel the opposite way. i think.

Happiness as a subject is explored so rarely that I'm glad Leigh is giving it a try; but he didn't need secondary characters to foil Broadbent and Sheen so completely. Both give such lived-in performances that giving them more space would have left the job to the audience of deciding whether their happiness is creepy. For example, I only needed two Manville scenes: the ones with the son and widower.

I was tired of her by then

Wasn't that the point, though? Or one of many?

I loved it btw. I loved the unequal attention paid to certain characters, a devastating instantiation of the film's theme.

Also, I don't think "everyone" in the film was an alcoholic any more than the eternally wine-guzzling countryside chatterers in Rohmer's films.

But that's my point – she's depicted as such. I got the impression that Leigh wanted me to think Manville was an alky while Broadbent and Sheen weren't.

I mean, I recoiled when apparently I was supposed to think of Annette Bening as an alcoholic in The Kids are All Right.

No, my comment was referring to nhex's comment above:

"Lesley Manville's performance in particular is just so soul-crushingly real, without being dramatically contrived... much like the casual suburban alcoholism of everyone in this film"

Certainly Manville's character had a problem with it. But Broadbent/Sheen were casual drinkers, not alcoholics.

I recoiled when apparently I was supposed to think of Annette Bening as an alcoholic in The Kids are All Right.

We were supposed to think that? I didn't get that at all.

I find Topsy Turvy endlessly watchable.

xps My takeaway from all the drinking was that just about everyone portrayed was an alcoholic, they were more functional than Manville. I mean just how much drinking can still be considered casual at a certain point? It was just completely accepted by all of them

Didn't see Manville's performance as campy at all - I've just known enough older ladies who really act like this, I guess

Drinking before, during, and after dinner is not functional alcoholism: it's called socializing!

i never liked topsy turvy much. maybe i'd be capable of caring about it if i was into theater.

Overall I don't fault her performance so much as the conception of the character.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 8, 2011 12:46 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

i sort of agree with this - i thought it was a very game performance, but i dont know if i always bought into the character.

My problem with Another Year was that you know everything you need to know about a character as soon as they appear on screen and Leigh doesn't take them anywhere even mildly surprising - tricky to pull off with a believable character (Tom and Gerri), impossible to pull off with a caricature (Tom's brother Ronnie, Mary) and downright depressing in the case of a typical Leigh character like Ken.

― jed_, Tuesday, June 7, 2011 6:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

this didnt hold true for me... maybe it would've if i'd seen more leigh movies?

The Rule Of Three: Its Mike Leigh

Drinking before, during, and after dinner is not functional alcoholism: it's called socializing!

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 8, 2011 5:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

hah, well, thats kinda how the *functional* part works...

that's not our fault -- it's our fucking culture's obsession with psychobabble

sounds like someone's rationalizing! *makes drinky drinky motion*

It's fairly clear that Tom and Gerri enjoy wine with dinner, and like to tipple with friends. Functional alcoholism is having a drink every couple of hours as if it were coffee and still being able to perform tasks.

They were constantly drinking in bed!

I remember them sipping wine or port on the couch.

I think the difference between Mary's drinking and the others' may not be the quantity as much as the way she drinks: desperately, greedily.

yep

i love topsy-turvy

the Criterion edition, which I watched recently, is gorgeous.

maybe i need to see it again idk

. i think it's maybe the best movie ever made about creative people creating -- everything about the process seemed deeply understood and felt. so many good performances all the way through the cast. and the period stuff is perfect but unobtrusive, it just completely puts you in that world.

― flying squid attack (tipsy mothra), Monday, September 28, 2009 7:00 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban

this is otm; that stuff about creativity is what i love about it...movies are usually so bad at this.

I've never seen TT. I'm sad that nobody voted for Career Girls. It's been a while but I remember really liking it.

I should watch it again as well -- after falling deeply for Secrets and Lies and Career Girls, I couldn't quite connect with it.

jim broadbent in topsy turvy is so <3

Yeah, Career Girls is mad underrated.

It is!

Also I was a huge Cure fan once upon a time so the all Cure sndtrk probably sucked me in some too. I'm gonna watch that again (and TT) this week.

The only "major" Leigh I don't care for is Naked, and I've watched it three times.

Yeah I'm not so big on Naked either tbh.

jed! i also thought the end of Happy-Go-Lucky was a nod to Celine and Julie, so glad it struck someone else the same way.

but i'm sort've surprised that ppl are reading the jim broadbent-ruth sheen cpl in AY as predictable 'good guys' - i felt the film took a more complex attitude towards them that, and by the end i wasn't sure how sympathetic or otherwise they were meant to be. you could easily present a reading of them as complacent, even cruel; i liked that ambiguity.

absolutely.

but i'm sort've surprised that ppl are reading the jim broadbent-ruth sheen cpl in AY as predictable 'good guys' - i felt the film took a more complex attitude towards them that, and by the end i wasn't sure how sympathetic or otherwise they were meant to be. you could easily present a reading of them as complacent, even cruel; i liked that ambiguity.

I agree! Said so upthread. Had the script and framing been different, their composure would have chilled me as much as Sally Hawkins'.

sorry alfred, sometimes it's difficult to read these threads as carefully as one should. i was reacting primarily to this:

But Jim Broadbent didn't get enough credit for making his Good Guy credible. We've all known guys like this: we look for the traces of condescension and can't find them.

jim broadbent in topsy turvy is so <3 OTMF! Irrascible yet playful - his pitch, as it were, is perfect.

I rather liked 'Naked' when I saw it but I have very little desire to ever do so again.

career girls is awful imo. naked doesn't do anything for me but i may revisit it.

hello ward! i agree with you about tom and gerri not being unambiguous - they way gerri is so cold towards mary when she shows up at the house unexpectedly rang very true though and made me feel (re. the discussion upthread) that leigh was actually making characters very close to himself in that instance - warm and cuddly initially on the surface but surprisingly brutal.

although, actually, i don't think they are the same. Tom is, i think, the kinder one whereas Gerri treats her personal relationships like an extension of her work: she turns it on and off although she's not aware of it. Maybe this is a much better film than I thought it was.

i agree with you about tom and gerri not being unambiguous - they way gerri is so cold towards mary when she shows up at the house unexpectedly rang very true though and made me feel (re. the discussion upthread) that leigh was actually making characters very close to himself in that instance - warm and cuddly initially on the surface but surprisingly brutal.

I got the sense that Leigh used a dramatic lacuna: something happened in those months, perhaps involving Gerri's growing realization of Mary's feelings for her son.

they way gerri is so cold towards mary when she shows up at the house unexpectedly rang very true though and made me feel (re. the discussion upthread) that leigh was actually making characters very close to himself in that instance - warm and cuddly initially on the surface but surprisingly brutal.

See, I don't buy this at all. Tom and Gerri had been EXTREMELY accommodating to Mary. But is someone really brutal or even cold to get upset when someone (esp. a someone like Mary) shows up unexpectedly? It's really rude and annoying and it's perfectly within anyone's right to get snippy about it. And even at that, Gerri doesn't kick her out and instead invites her to stay for dinner (it was dinner, right?). So how brutal/Mike Leigh-esque is she?

Tom and Gerri are the film's fulcrum, a support mechanism which explains their composure. But that doesn't mean there's no nuance or depth to their characters. They're not doormats for Mary to wipe her shoes on, for instance. If that were the case, then Gerri would have been totally fine with Mary showing up unannounced.

And I suppose if you see Tom and Gerri as brutal then it'd be simple to see them as alcoholics. But I honestly think that's incorrect and there's little in the film to support such a reading.