Revisiting Mike Leigh’s film, Another Year (2010), there are images of the middle-aged couple Tom (Jim Broadbent), a geologist, and Gerri (Ruth Sheen), a counsellor, that are so appealing and heart-warming to me. Gerri cuddling Tom while he prepares dinner or both of them sitting underneath a tarp with a cup of tea while it rains in the community garden they tend to. It’s so idyllic and moving – yes, I want to be them! I want that type of companionship in the autumn years! Then there’s another reaction as well, particularly as the film, which follows a year in their lives, brings in the other friends and relatives in Tom and Gerri’s orbit. I also have the snarky thought, why do they get to be happy? What makes them so special? Particularly when the film is interested in the contrast between their happiness and security – along with their adult son Joe (Olivier Maltman) – with others who are struggling, such as Gerri’s work friend, Mary (Lesley Manville), or Tom’s friend from his teenage years, Ken (Peter Wright); these are depressed, lost and lonely people who inevitably find themselves at Tom and Gerri’s home for company and emotional support. It’s a film about growing old, and as one reviewer Fran Hoepfner said, ‘the comfortable stay comfortable and the uncomfortable stay uncomfortable’. Are Tom and Gerri so at ease because of economics and the fact that they live in a better area than Tom’s brother Ronnie (David Bradley)? Is it also just a part of a culture that brushes any serious problems away with the rejoinder, “How about a cup of tea then?” I don’t think the film sees things as so easily resolved, not when the movie becomes more about Mary, brilliantly performed by Lesley Manville, as someone who can be quite grating and is a chaotic, needy, overstepping presence. Yet through the simmering tension and conflict that develops comes across as a real and recognisable presence, and one that the film sees as deserving of empathy. I couldn’t really reconcile what Manville creates here and when I saw her later as the commanding, regal sister in Phantom Thread – how could this be the same performer? Absolute chameleon. What Manville does in Another Year is just an absolutely moving turn deserving of all the awards back then. All the performances are great, once again a testament to the preparation and work that goes into these characters with Leigh’s unique method of working (drawing on months of pre-production actor improvisation and rehearsal to fashion the eventual shape and story of the movie). The film itself is still funny and warm but also sad and difficult, an underrated and unassuming drama that’s quite masterful, particularly the final scene that I’ve never forgotten since I first saw it. Available to stream on ABC iView. Recommended.
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