Every once in a while, a film comes along that reminds you that the British cinema industry is still capable of delivering more than saccharine period dramas and Cockney gangster capers. Mike Leigh's Another Year, released late in 2010 but currently enjoying a short run at Bermondsey's splendid Shortwave Cinema, is just such a work.
Since the late 1970s, Mancunian Leigh has directed a steady stream of plays, TV dramas and full length features skilfully analysing the quietly dysfunctional relationships that go on within communities all across Britain. Unlike say Ken Loach, Leigh generally avoids wallowing in cliches about the downtrodden but spirited working classes and instead presents a more even handed portrayal of people from all across society.
Another Year focuses on 12 months in the life of Tom and Geri (yes really) an affable, contented professional couple enjoying late middle age in London suburbia. As with many Leigh films, there is no plot as such. What we get instead is a quartet of extended set pieces, themed around the four seasons, providing a platform for some wonderfully observed interaction between a group of fantastic actors, often asked by Leigh to improvise dialogue (he starts all his projects without a script) for heightened authenticity.
The central couple (played with great warmth and humour by Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) are essentially an advertisement for the benefits of long-term, stable companionship, acting as a social hub and rock of support for the more troubled lives of their friends and family, who by and large do not seem to have such a fulfilled existence.
Whether it's son Joe (30 something and single), Tom's brother Ronnie (recently bereaved) or most prominently Geri's work colleague Mary (bitterly divorced), the other people in Tom and Geri's world are all portrayed as victims of loneliness. While Joe appears to receive redemption later in the film by meeting a new partner, mutton dressed as lamb Mary (Lesley Manville, superb), approaching 50 and clearly desperate for love, sinks further into depression, drink and an unhealthy dependence on Tom and Geri, who are torn between their good natured compassion for a troubled soul and an increasing irritation at her behaviour.
During the year, we witness dinner parties, barbecues, after work drinks, rounds of golf - in other words, all the day to day events that many of us experience every week. Most affecting of all is Tom's return to his native Derby to oversee the funeral of brother Ronnie's wife, which perfectly captures the tense awkwardness of an estranged family forced to engage with one another again by a shared loss.
Whether it's Mary chattering inanely about the new car she picked up for £600, Tom and his old school friend Ken wistfully recalling the glory years of Derby County football club or Joe's new girlfriend Katie nervously giggling at every joke during a first meeting with his parents, Another Year is that rare thing - a film depicting ordinary, fundamentally decent people with good points and bad points going about their lives in a normal way, sometimes having to face up to challenges and deal with them as best they can. Those seeking fast paced action and show stopping drama may struggle with the more understated charms on offer here, but viewers prepared to show patience will be amply rewarded.
Leigh has directed some great films in his time - the nightmarish Naked and the poignant Vera Drake to name but two. But this life affirming combination of real, human characters in real, human situations may be his best work yet.
