The Mike Leigh Poll

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.

the thing is that gerri and tom have each other and the gentle lull of drinking together "just one more"/"oh okay then" is superficially contrasted with mary's tragic/alcoholic drinking on her own but it's fairly clear that leigh is showing them as drinking on a similar level. is it not, in fact, one of the techniques he's using to make you differentiate the sets of characters of throw your attitude towards them into relief, as it were?

I didn't see the pair of them as brutal or alcoholic. I also had no idea why they were so happy, and as my editor wrote in his review, Leigh isn't telling.

also -- and I admit this is a caricature of a caricature -- it's another "single people are a mess" film.

"or throw..."

I also had no idea why they were so happy

but they didn't seem abnormally happy.

is it not, in fact, one of the techniques he's using to make you differentiate the sets of characters of throw your attitude towards them into relief, as it were?

Yes, but the technique shows me that Tom and Gerri drink responsibly and Mary does not.

Even if they were raging alcoholics, though, I still don't see Gerri's reaction to Mary showing up unannounced as brutal or cold in the least. In fact, I'm showing up to YOUR place unannounced sometime this week and see how YOU react. :)

it's another "single people are a mess" film.

Ah now see, that's a negative critique of the film that I could buy.

xpost try me ;)

if i do agree with you it's because i think there's a fault in lesley manville's performance (and of course by extension in leigh's direction) in making mary too much to bear/too annoying right from the kick off. as soon as she appears on screen you know she's a mess and she never develops from that.

No way. Look at her face in that closing shot. She's finally starting to get it!

Not only that her life is a horrible mess but that these people are kinda assholes. They weren't too subtle in mocking her at that point.

I thought Leslie Manville gave an incredible performance in this film. My sympathy was definitely with her character. I was also confused why Ruth Sheen's character was so cold to her all of a sudden--besides the showing up unannounced, I think some stuff was cut.

Mike Leigh is hilarious in person. Every question from the audience is either the most brilliant and insightful interpretation of his work, or the most dunderheaded claptrap that a human ever dared to speak. I would never ask him anything!

Virginia Plain, address please.

Ahaha. It took me a while to get that.

Dr. M., what are some other examples of the "single people are a mess" micro-genre?

I really love Another Year.

I don't think it's solely a "single people are a mess" film, or at least it's as simple as that.

Also Gerri was cold to Mary because of the way she acted when she met Joe's girlfriend. Gerri and Tom (and everyone) knew exactly what happened, and they commented on it afterwards.

I don't think Tom and Gerri are alcoholics in the slightest.

DAMN, finally saw Vera Drake this morning (finally noticed it's on Netflix instant). It takes me a long time to see movies these days, even ones by my favorite directors. There are Herzogs and Greenaways (and other Leighs) from the 2000s that I've still not seen, which would have been unthinkable to 1990s me.

Tremendous movie. The kind where I have to spend the entire end credits sequence just staring and breathing and listening to the music. Top 5 Leigh, easy. Damn.

Also-- Career Girls is great; I can see why no one might vote it as their FAVORITE but it has absofkinlutely nothing to apologize for at all.

I saw T-T the other night for the umpteenth time. There has never been a time when I haven't stumbled upon this movie (at whatever point in the plot) and not been half-transfixed and pleased, and I've seen it many times.

this happens to me with so many Mike Leigh films - Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake, Abigail's Party. Even Another Year. I've only seen T-T once but i will see it plenty of times, i bet.

just turned 70

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-mike-leigh-70

I've been meaning to revisit some of his films, and finally get around to watching the ones I haven't seen. Secrets and Lies I found especially affecting when I first saw it, but I don't know whether it would hold up as well now; I think I'd be more aware of, and averse to, Mike Leigh's emotional manipulation and tendency towards pathetic stereotypes. I'm also baffled as to how Career Girls didn't receive any votes. It's such a great film: funny and warm and awkward and poignant, a kind of balm for me. Katrin Cartlidge gives what is one of my favourite performances ever.