Another Year

Another Year, Mike Leigh's most recent film, is a deep and satisfying glimpse into the lives of a middle-class British couple and the small group of people who's lives they influence over the course of a year. It stars actors who are part of the ensemble Leigh has gathered over the years--Jim Broadbent (Gilbert in Topsy-Turvy), and Ruth Sheen (Vera Drake) as Tom and Gerry, the older couple who's lives the story evolves around, and Leslie Manville (Vera Drake, Topsy Turvy), who plays Mary, Gerry's increasingly troubled co-worker.

Mike Leigh has been making a distinctive kind of film for forty years--his first feature was the aptly titled Bleak Moments, about a woman's struggle to care for her younger mentally ill sister who tries to escape from the weight of her life through relationships with a  pair of strangers. He has directed and written extensively for British Television, is an accomplished playwright and his films have won numerous major awards, including five Oscar nominations for best director and/or best screenplay (Happy-Go-Lucky, Vera Drake, Topsy-Turvy, Secrets & Lies). His films are extremely actor and character focussed and don't rely on action sequences or complex editing to prop up the storytelling. He is quite singular in his approach to story and character development, insisting that his cast (many are regulars in his films) develop the roles--and the story--over extensive rehearsals and workshop-like meetings that can take place for months before filming begins.

One of Leigh's greatest strengths is his ability to create complex and fully realized roles for women and then direct them in a way that brings them alive on screen. Leigh's recent film Happy-Go-Lucky followed the life of infectiously up-beat woman named Poppy, played remarkably by Sally Hawkins (Road to Dagenham), who never gives in to the ordinariness of her working class life--whether she is inspiring the grade school kids she teaches, taking tango lessons, or learning to operate a car by terrorizing her gloomy and anxiety ridden driving instructor.  All of the acting in Another Year is subtle and feels authentic--but the film is driven by the increasingly unhinged and seemingly uncontrollable emotions of Leslie Manville's portrayal of Mary, a secretary in the health center where Gerry works. She is always late, always rushing, always demanding that other's give their time to her while she unburdens herself about her own problems. She is naive and caring like a child and believes, in a way that is ultimately tragic because it does not recognize the true nature of the world, that things will work out because there will always be people to care for her.

Leigh introduces a central theme of Another Year--that there are people who need help and there are people who will try to help if they can--through a familiar face. The first person we meet in the film is Janet, played by Vera Drake's Imelda Staunton, who is suffering from sleep loss. She won’t cooperate with the nurse who tries to help her--and refuses to imagine anything that might help her grow past her situation. "Change is frightening, isn't it?" Gerry tells her. Janet's response is simple and glum. "Nothing Changes". After two short scenes she doesn't appear in the film again--but the idea that we need to understand change, to see it for what it is, and to ultimately adapt is made clear.

Another Year is structured in four parts based on the seasons--the natural cycle of change and transformation. It opens in a springtime shower as we follow Gerry and Tom from their middle class home to a large community garden that they lovingly tend together. His back aches, she plants flowers with her hands, the rain falls and they take the time to sip tea in the back of a small open shed, smiling to each other as the rain falls harder around them. It becomes clear that they have found a way to experience happiness by supporting each other. He's a geologist with passion for his work--he leads a company that does the research necessary for building bridges and tunnels. She is a social worker, trying to help whoever finds their way into her office. Their simple but nice home is a place for calm, reflection, and good natured enjoyment of their own time together and the large sunny kitchen is their central meeting place.

But life does move on, and things do change-- sometimes change can be difficult and even painful. Leigh explores many of the essential problems and conflicts of life through the interaction of a handful of people who move in and out of Gerry and Tom's lives. Mary, the co-worker, has been friends with Gerry for over 20 years, and lives a life of hope unfulfilled--divorce, failed relationships, dreaming that somehow a positive change might come over her life. Joe, the son, works as a public advocate, and is single--a state that his parents would like to see improved upon. Ken, a physically overstuffed school friend of Tom's, is deeply unhappy with the stultifying routine of his life and compensates with the continuous intake of food and alcohol. All around Tom and Gerry friends and family are getting old and dying.

One of the most interesting things about Another Year is the way that change begins to compound itself--as people come in and out of Gerry and Tom's lives each are transformed (or not) by the other. Mary's dream for change is wrapped around the idea of buying a car that will allow her to feel free and in control of herself. She imagines the holidays she will be able to take and the ease of traveling around the city--but she doesn't see that like the sleepless patient earlier in the film her problems are much deeper than her mode of transportation. Like Ken, who must compensate for his low self-esteem by such sustained eating and drinking that he is literally unable to breath or speak, Mary relies so heavily on a full glass of wine that when it is empty she is unable to mask the depression that instantly descends upon her. Unable to imagine change, Mary believes that Joe, who she has known since he was 10 and watched grow up, is some kind of soul mate. She is the only one who doesn't see that overweight Ken might be more suitable. Her biggest blow happens when she learns that Joe has a girlfriend--Gerry and Tom's delight becomes Mary's bitter reality.

Leigh gets the most out of each scene by letting us into the minds of characters through performance and action to amplify the finely crafted dialogue. In a bar scene early in the film, when Mary talks about her independence with Gerry, she is also trying to catch the eye of a handsome man standing at the bar. But she is hurt when a younger woman finally arrives to join the man and we see it in her face, without a word of dialogue. Her life is changing but she has not caught on yet.  Stylistically, Leigh's use of reaction shots in the film is masterful, especially in the two extended kitchen scenes--first between Tom, Gerry and Mary in the Spring section and most remarkably when they are joined by Joe and his girlfriend Katie in the Fall section. The editing and shooting style mesh seamlessly--Leigh has worked with cinematographer Dick Pope since 1990's Life is Sweet and they find a way to shoot the story that gives emphasis on performance while giving the image a professionalism that fits the weight of the story. For instance, there are no hand-held shots in Another Year. It's a film concerned with what goes on within the frame--how the characters respond to each other--not with commenting cinematically on how we should be responding to it. When Mary is confronted with an event that does not correspond to the worldview she has clung to--the fact that Joe might "grow up" before she does--it's like her mind and body shut down. The pain of processing this unexpected change is so powerful that Mary is unable to engage in conversation, she instinctively attacks Katie until she has destroyed every reservoir of good will that the family has left for her. With each astonished reaction shot of Gerry and Tom we realize that Mary has lost a friendship that will probably be impossible to get back.

There is so much that works in Another Year--music is barely used, but when it is the subtle and simple classically inspired soundtrack by Gary Yershon provides an emotional resonance that introduces each of the seasons or completes a sequence in a way that gives us a few moments to reflect on the experience in an unobtrusive but effective way. Using the cycle of seasons to frame the story Leigh artfully ties together narrative progress with the movement of time. For instance we spend time in each of the seasons with Gerry, Tom and sometimes Joe as they plant, tend and harvest the garden--and prepare garden-grown vegetables in the kitchen. Spring and summer is the time of life--Gerry's co-worker who tried to help the depressed woman at the opening of the film gives birth in the summer and is celebrated at Gerry and Tom's garden party. Winter is the time of death and rebirth. A member of Tom's family passes away and the rhythm of life is changed for everybody--whether they can handle the change or not.

Another Year is a substantial film that looks at the human condition with wisdom, a bit of humor, and an unsparing sense that the world will transform, and transform us, whether we like it or not. But there is hope in love and acceptance. Early in the film Gerry and Tom describe a vacation experience to Mary that illustrates how they manage with each other. "The geologist stands on the beach," he says, "with his back to the sea, looking at the cliffs." Then Gerry finishes . . . "The geologists wife stands on the beach, back to the cliffs, looking out at the sea." It's the perfect parable for two people who could choose loneliness but instead choose each other. It is a message of hope that even Mary, who desperately wants back into "the family," might one day understand.

                                    Thomas W. Campbell