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Amazon.co.uk Review
The phrase ‘national treasure’ is, inevitably, an overused one. But Mike Leigh, arguably Britain’s most consistently strong film director of the past 20 years, surely warrants the tag. His latest film, Another Year, is one of his finest, as Leigh once more draws sensational performances from his cast. The cast features Lesley Manville, Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen, and the premise of the film follows a married couple in the later years of their lives. We meet them across the four seasons of one year, and Another Year calmly explores the unhappiness, events and people that surround them during that time.
It’s a wonderfully understated piece of work. As is his usual approach, Leigh worked with his cast for months to shape the characters in the film, and they come through as fully three-dimensional human beings. They’re exquisitely played, too, with Broadbent and Manville rightly attracting awards attention for their work here. The hidden star of the piece, though, is Mike Leigh himself. His focused direction, and honest exploration of human lives, shines through once more. And while Another Year may not, ultimately, be one of 2010’s most upbeat movies, it’s undoubtedly one of its very best. --Jon Foster
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Cast/Crew Interview(s), Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: Class consciousness has frequently played a role in Mike Leigh's films, and not only because, as a storyteller whose native terrain is modern Britain, he can hardly hope to avoid it. And sure enough, the observant viewer of his splendidly rich and wise new feature, 'Another Year,' will notice the shadows that an always-evolving system of social hierarchy casts over the passage of the seasons. ('We're all graduates,' one character reminds another, with the prickly pride of belonging to the first generation to receive a university education in an era of expanded opportunity.) But in this movie, as in its immediate precursor, 'Happy-Go-Lucky,' Mr. Leigh is also after a more elusive and troubling form of injustice, one that is almost cosmically mysterious even as it penetrates, and sometimes threatens to poison, the relationships that make up everyday life. Like 'Happy-Go-Lucky,' though on a somewhat larger scale, 'Another Year' is about the unequal distribution of happiness. Why do some people - like Tom and Gerri, the post-'60s 60-something couple at the center of this episodic story - seem to have an inexhaustible, even superabundant supply, while others seem unable to acquire even the smallest portion? Can happiness be borrowed, stolen or inherited? Is it earned by meritorious works or granted by the obscure operations of grace? These may sound like silly, abstract questions, but they could hardly be more serious or more relevant. Here in America, after all, the pursuit of happiness has the status of a foundational right, coincident, but not quite identical, with material prosperity. In Britain, where dourness can seem to be as much a part of the s...Another Year ( Untitled Mike Leigh Project )
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
76 of 81 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Life isn't sweet for the characters of Mike Leigh's new film, and it's not happy-go-lucky either.
"Another Year" is, in short, another Leigh film about normal folk living ordinary lives. And yet, of course, it's about so much more.
It's about an allotment for one thing - a small parcel of land lovingly tended by geologist Tom (Jim Broadbent) and his medical counsellor wife Gerri (Ruth Sheen).
It's also about a car: a dysfunctional little runaround that Gerri's lonely, wineslugging co-worker Mary (Lesley Manville) buys in the futile expectation it will open up new horizons.
It's about Tom's chum Ken (Peter Wight), a boozy, overweight sadsack. It's also about Tom's older brother Ronnie (David Bradley) and their respective sons: one a wry community lawyer (Oliver Maltman), the other an angry, volatile malcontent (Martin Savage).
Family and friends, children and parents, siblings and colleagues. Split into four parts, each one focused on a different season, Another Year has a formal, Eric Rohmer-esque structure that makes it one of its creator's most ordered works.
Yet the middle-class suburban milieu it shows is anything but, the lottery of humanity having blessed Tom and Gerri with married contentment and saddled the likes of Mary, Ken and Janet (a despondent patient of Gerri's, memorably played by Imelda Staunton) with disappointment and misery. Why do some luck out and others miss out?
You won't find an answer to that conundrum in Year. But you do see what happens when the two collide, Mary's inappropriate crush on Maltman's jovial Joe coming a cropper when he arrives for tea with a perky girlfriend (Karina Fernandez) half her age.
Manville is teriffic here, her pinched mouth and teary eyes conveying the anguish of a woman who's just had her last illusion shattered. Yet so too is Sheen, her benevolent compassion turning steely at the merest hint of her brood being threatened.
Throw in Broadbent's chipper, gently mocking patriarch and you have three of the finest performances ever to grace a Mike Leigh yarn. No mean feat from the man who gave us Naked, Vera Drake and Secrets & Lies.
Meantime, long-term Leigh collaborator, cinematographer Dick Pope, elegantly transports us from spring through to winter with a such graceful fluidity that one easily forgives the film's occasional longueur.
Leigh's take on life's rich tapestry - its smiles, its frowns, its ups and downs - is second nature to us now. Yet he's still made Another funny, perceptive, moving human drama. Neil Smith
"Another Year" is, in short, another Leigh film about normal folk living ordinary lives. And yet, of course, it's about so much more.
It's about an allotment for one thing - a small parcel of land lovingly tended by geologist Tom (Jim Broadbent) and his medical counsellor wife Gerri (Ruth Sheen).
It's also about a car: a dysfunctional little runaround that Gerri's lonely, wineslugging co-worker Mary (Lesley Manville) buys in the futile expectation it will open up new horizons.
It's about Tom's chum Ken (Peter Wight), a boozy, overweight sadsack. It's also about Tom's older brother Ronnie (David Bradley) and their respective sons: one a wry community lawyer (Oliver Maltman), the other an angry, volatile malcontent (Martin Savage).
Family and friends, children and parents, siblings and colleagues. Split into four parts, each one focused on a different season, Another Year has a formal, Eric Rohmer-esque structure that makes it one of its creator's most ordered works.
Yet the middle-class suburban milieu it shows is anything but, the lottery of humanity having blessed Tom and Gerri with married contentment and saddled the likes of Mary, Ken and Janet (a despondent patient of Gerri's, memorably played by Imelda Staunton) with disappointment and misery. Why do some luck out and others miss out?
You won't find an answer to that conundrum in Year. But you do see what happens when the two collide, Mary's inappropriate crush on Maltman's jovial Joe coming a cropper when he arrives for tea with a perky girlfriend (Karina Fernandez) half her age.
Manville is teriffic here, her pinched mouth and teary eyes conveying the anguish of a woman who's just had her last illusion shattered. Yet so too is Sheen, her benevolent compassion turning steely at the merest hint of her brood being threatened.
Throw in Broadbent's chipper, gently mocking patriarch and you have three of the finest performances ever to grace a Mike Leigh yarn. No mean feat from the man who gave us Naked, Vera Drake and Secrets & Lies.
Meantime, long-term Leigh collaborator, cinematographer Dick Pope, elegantly transports us from spring through to winter with a such graceful fluidity that one easily forgives the film's occasional longueur.
Leigh's take on life's rich tapestry - its smiles, its frowns, its ups and downs - is second nature to us now. Yet he's still made Another funny, perceptive, moving human drama. Neil Smith
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
It is not very often that we have the opportunity to view a film about real people. People with flaws, people who are not movie star handsome, people we know, like our neighbors, our inlaws, our children. Mike Leigh has written and directed this superb film about these people.
Tom, played by Jim Broadbent, and Gerry, played by Ruth Sheen live in North London. They have been married for years, happily married, even. They have a son, Joe, played by oliver Maltman, who loves his parents and seems to be a perfectly normal young man. He is looking for a soulmate and feels the pressure from his parents, at times. Gerry is a therapist. For thirty years she has worked with Mary, superbly played by Lesley Manville, a secretary who has porblems. She wants the perfect man who will never be available, and she drinks too much to get her through her day. She has glammed on to Tom and Gerry. Their home is a warm, inviting place, and they are not judgemental. After a perfectly hideous evening of too much drinking and obvious jealousy of Joe's new girlfriend, Tom says of Mary, "It's Sad" That really says it all. A family funeral portrays a funeral like no other, but does point out the foibles we see in other families, and sometimes our own. All this time, going home to Tom and Gerry's is the best place to be. Tom and Gerry love their friends and family and support them, through thick and thin. We see much of the thin in this film, but that is real life.
Mike Leigh has given us a film where we feel embarrassment, amusement and sadness. This is real life, folks. We all know folks like this and maybe it is us. We are peeking into the lives of people who have foibles and we can learn from their predicaments, and from the manner that Tom and Gerry deal with life and with these folks they welcome into their lives. This is a film that gave me a sense of joy, that good folks like Tom and Gerry abound. Life is not all about the beautiful people making too much money and getting into too much trouble. We are, after all, all too human.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 06-12-11
Tom, played by Jim Broadbent, and Gerry, played by Ruth Sheen live in North London. They have been married for years, happily married, even. They have a son, Joe, played by oliver Maltman, who loves his parents and seems to be a perfectly normal young man. He is looking for a soulmate and feels the pressure from his parents, at times. Gerry is a therapist. For thirty years she has worked with Mary, superbly played by Lesley Manville, a secretary who has porblems. She wants the perfect man who will never be available, and she drinks too much to get her through her day. She has glammed on to Tom and Gerry. Their home is a warm, inviting place, and they are not judgemental. After a perfectly hideous evening of too much drinking and obvious jealousy of Joe's new girlfriend, Tom says of Mary, "It's Sad" That really says it all. A family funeral portrays a funeral like no other, but does point out the foibles we see in other families, and sometimes our own. All this time, going home to Tom and Gerry's is the best place to be. Tom and Gerry love their friends and family and support them, through thick and thin. We see much of the thin in this film, but that is real life.
Mike Leigh has given us a film where we feel embarrassment, amusement and sadness. This is real life, folks. We all know folks like this and maybe it is us. We are peeking into the lives of people who have foibles and we can learn from their predicaments, and from the manner that Tom and Gerry deal with life and with these folks they welcome into their lives. This is a film that gave me a sense of joy, that good folks like Tom and Gerry abound. Life is not all about the beautiful people making too much money and getting into too much trouble. We are, after all, all too human.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 06-12-11
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
"Another Year" was a mesmerising film that reminded me of the "Play for Today's" of the 1970's. It is based around the lives of a happily married late middle-aged couple, Tom and Gerri, and deals with their relationships with various friends and family members over the course of one single year. Tom and Gerri are content , well adjusted professionals who spend their time working an allotment and hosting dinner parties. However their friends are not so stable and responsible. We meet the memorable Mary , a lachrymose,desperate neurotic who clings to Gerri as she finds herself unable to cope with her loneliness and growing old. She has an inappropriate crush on her friend's 30 year old son, Joe , fondly imagining them becoming an item , a fancy that is destroyed with the introduction of Joe's new girlfriend , the lovely ,perky Katie. We meet the equally lonely and sad Ken , a sweaty , overweight drunk whose interest in Mary is cruelly rebuffed. He too faces an old age on his own ,alienated from the world around him. All of the characters in this film are ordinary people living ordinary lives and they all are portrayed wonderfully by this excellent cast. "Another Year" is a film for adults that you rarely see any more. The cinemas are mostly full of cartoons , CGI action movies, rom coms and slasher films now and this film is a welcome change from all of that.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
both enchanted and dismayed by the emotional honesty
(THE FILM)
Award winning director Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, Happy-Go-Lucky) collaborates once again with British acting heavyweights Jim Broadbent (Harry Potter, Bridget Jones),... Read more
Award winning director Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, Happy-Go-Lucky) collaborates once again with British acting heavyweights Jim Broadbent (Harry Potter, Bridget Jones),... Read more
Published 12 days ago by S. F. husseiny
Sadder than your usual Mike Leigh - but well worth watching
For me this seemed a slightly bleaker Mike Leigh - with none of the usual glimmers of humour we have come to expect from his films. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mrs. L. Watson
Tiresome
Thought we'd give it a go. However I was that bored I went to bed before the end...not something that usually happens. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mike
Bad acting, bad script - bad movie
This was one of the worst films I ever have seen. Overacting and a script that seen like it was written in a weekend.
Published 1 month ago by Ken-Robin E. Utvik
A fine movie
I find it very sad that this movie has received so many 1-star reviews.
I can only imagine they came upon this film by accident as, for me, it is very typical Mike... Read more
I can only imagine they came upon this film by accident as, for me, it is very typical Mike... Read more
Published 1 month ago by GT247
Best Mike Leigh film since Secrets & Lies
Best Mike Leigh film since Secrets & Lies although would make uncomfortable viewing if you are middle-aged and single! Best character is Tom and Gerry's house.
Published 2 months ago by charlieb
well done
we really enjoyed this series , jim broadbent was very good but lesley manville stole the show she is a very good actor does not do enough , we loved the story line but found the... Read more
Published 2 months ago by nemsh
Great story telling!
I really enjoyed this film. It's a snapshot of the state of being human - beautifully told. It's not a romantic film. Read more
Published 3 months ago by GOS
Classic Leigh
After the wonderful, 'Happy Go Lucky', I was slightly concerned that the plot of this film (admittedly a slow-burner) was not developing. I was wrong. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. B. R. Good
somebody shoot mike leigh please
i can hardly bring myself to have to endure the agonoies of reliving this tripe except to save another person from suffering the same fate of sitting through this drivel. Read more
Published 5 months ago by djb
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