At the movies: Mike Leigh's ‘Another Year’

‘Another Year’ is another really good Mike Leigh film. Its story unfolds over four Sunday afternoons in different seasons (beautifully shot by Dick Pope) and in its centre a middle aged couple Tom (Jim Broadbent) a geologist and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) a therapist, still happily married, good parents to their thirty year old son, and kind, welcoming friends, especially to Mary (Lesley Manville) Gerri’s lonely friend from work. Throughout the film cups of tea are made and drunk, dinners cooked and enjoyed over glasses of wine, allotment tended to over weekends. Life drifts by with the seasons in a calm manner, but that is until Mary turns up for dinner and shakes things up a little. A still attractive, highly entertaining and lively middle aged singleton, she talks a lot, smokes a lot and drinks a lot. A car crash waiting to happen, Mary’s life is the opposite of her friends’, with their warm, comfortable home and a rock solid marriage and she clings to them for support until an incident that strains their relationship. With both Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen underplaying their roles, they allow Lesley Manville’s Mary to stand out and deliver an incredible performance and bring bouts of energy to this gentle, quiet, compassionate film.

Trailer HERE