"Why do I always get it wrong, Gerri?"
Director Mike Leigh never, ever fails to hold our attention. His signature style
of handing his actors an outline rather than a script results in rare
authenticity. Leigh's new Another Year moves very slowly through a year
in the lives of Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). It is quickly clear
that this thoroughly stable couple is the go to anchor for their friends who
arrive carrying troubles both trivial and major.
Gerri works
as a psychotherapist in a hospital where she counsels people with perceptive
insights and quiet questions. Tom is an oil geologist. In an otherwise ordinary
life, Tom and Gerri have achieved something extraordinary with each other and
within themselves. They never overreact; they are empathetic without giving
advice. They are absolutely comfortable with each other and with their lives.
Their friends come to them less to have their problems solved than simply to be
near contentment in the hope that it might rub off..
Whenever they
are home, they are either digging in their big garden or receiving visitors at
the kitchen table. Food and comfort are readily available to all comers. Their
most steady guest is Mary (Lesley Manville), a hospital colleague of Gerri's
who, though she appreciates her good job and nice flat, is unbearably lonely.
After failed relationships, she has no one to talk to , no one to be with. "Why
do I always get it wrong, Gerri?" Her drinking is the measure of her depression.
Mary is unable to watch the contentment of other people without resentment. She
can see people only as they affect her.
Ken (Peter
Wight), another alcoholic, sweats as he swills beer, wine, and food
simultaneously while bulking up to obesity. His impending retirement represents
an empty new world, and the bars that have been his home are newly filled with
noisy young people.
Tom and
Gerri's son Joe (Oliver Maltman), a marvelous replica of his well adjusted
parents - is nothing special, mind you, just a good guy moving nicely through
life. When at last he finds Katie (Karina Fernandez) as his intended bride, his
parents are warm and welcoming, and characteristically without suggestions or
interference. They have contentment that is many layers deep. In Gerri, director
Leigh has created a woman so calm and contained that she seems to have no
interior mess to pour forth. She and Tom just take what comes. No problems, no
need for solutions.
The people
who pass through their house are drawn by the sight of quiet pleasure so
understated and unfathomable that none of them can figure it out. Tom and Gerri
have each other, their family, their work and their garden. There are no
beautiful people in this film, no stars - just gifted actors who are able to
respond to Mike Leigh's invitation to create their own characters with the
result that we feel like guests in the house watching ordinary life unfold.
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