DVD Review: Life is Sweet (dir. Mike Leigh [1990]; BFI, 2017)

My review of the new BFI DVD/Blu-ray re-release of Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet (1990) is up at PopMatters. You can read it here. 

Film Review: A Running Jump (Leigh, 2012)

Last year, at the National Theatre, Mike Leigh devised and directed a new play, Grief [review here], a slow-burning work of exquisite stillness and quiet that developed gradually into something extraordinarily intense; watching the production felt like being placed, ever so gently, into a vice, and a full ten months on, I’m still haunted by it. Leigh’s fragrant new short film, A Running Jump, finds him moving in the opposite direction, trading Grief’s slow, sad beauty for full-tilt jauntiness and joviality. One of four films especially commissioned for the Cultural Olympiad - the others are by Asif Kapadia, Lynne Ramsay and Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini  - the canny, candy-coloured A Running Jump transforms London - or at least the East End corner of it occupied by Perry (Eddie Marsan), his wife Debbie (Samantha Spiro), his pa (Sam Kelly) and two daughters (Danielle and Nichole Bird) - into a sports-ground of sorts, replete with characters who become runners, joggers and jumpers as they go about their daily business in the city.

Needless to say, A Running Jump doesn’t have the richness of texture of Leigh’s finest work. But if its short scenes - structured as snapshots - never quite add up to a portrait, the sketch that they do develop is very satisfying. Though Leigh hasn’t made many short films in his career (1988's The Short & Curlies being the most notable) I think it’s a form that suits him. At their least successful, the slightly heightened, broad strokes that constitute the Leigh brand of realism can grate; his approach to characterisation can lead you, at times, to feel that you’ve had enough of his protagonists. Here, by contrast, you’re left wanting more of them. (And there’s no time for finger-pointing admonishments, either.) The cast - made up more of Leigh newbies than regulars - sketch vivid creations, from Marsan’s motor-mouth car-dealer, his entire discourse a variant on patter (“You got a girlfriend? You soon will have in a car like this!”), to Spiro’s  Debbie who channels both Alison Steadman’s Wendy in Life is Sweet (1990) and Karina Fernandez’s flamenco teacher in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) as she instructs her exercise class in her first scene: “C’mon, I wanna smell that juice!”

Edited to the rhythm of the characters’ movements (when Perry gets a brief moment of easeful repose he’s rewarded with one of the film’s rare close-ups), A Running Jump is so marvellously brisk it’s practically Leigh’s first action movie. But the film also finds time to incorporate that Leigh staple: namely, an encounter between two characters with wildly different concerns and modes of expression. Here that encounter is between Sam Kelly as Perry's sports-fixated Dad and Lee Ingleby’s Gary, who comes to buy a car from Perry, and can’t resist sharing his Mayan-calendar-schooled theories about the End of Days. (Ingleby, it must be said, is every inch a perfect new recruit to Leighland.)

There are some infelicities - Gary Yershon’s score, as insistently employed as it was in Another Year, is the major one - but Leigh has produced a lovely little piece of work here, one that’s fluid, funny and crowned by the intermingled irony and beauty of its superb final shot. A Running Jump is, unsurprisingly, no retrograde Chariots of Fire-esque triumph-fest; rather, it simply shows sport as part of the texture of everyday London life. The movie’s emblem isn’t the Union Jack at all, but rather the pink shirt worn by Perry as he dashes through the busy streets, juggling mobiles, endlessly cajoling, on the make.

A Running Jump screens tomorrow on BBC 2 at 23.20.

5 Filmmakers (v): Mike Leigh

Three key films: Naked (1993), Secrets and Lies (1996), Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Underrated film:  All or Nothing (2002). A contemporary drama released between Leigh’s two stunning “period” films Topsy-Turvy and Vera Drake (2004), All Or Nothing slipped through the net; indeed, the movie has been described by Leigh and Lesley Manville as “the one that got away.” Dismissed by some British critics as grim and interminable, this raw ensemble drama about the fortunes of three families on a South London council estate is in fact a rewarding, involving and, finally, quietly affirmative piece of work: “I feel that this film is entirely about redemption,” Leigh has said. With superb performances from Manville, Timothy Spall, Ruth Sheen, James Corden, and, in her first role for Leigh, Sally Hawkins, All or Nothing combines Ozu-like intimacy with an oddly epic scope; it’s ripe for rediscovery.

Unforgettable moment: The meeting between Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) and Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) in the diner in Secrets and Lies, shot in one brilliantly sustained long take, encapsulates the film’s brand of humour and heartbreak, as Cynthia moves from denial and amnesia to the recognition that the young woman sitting beside her is in fact the daughter that she gave up for adoption years before.

The Legend (1943-)

“Directly, objectively, yet compassionately [Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs] puts on the screen the great, hard, real adventure of living and surviving from day to day and from year to year, the experience of ordinary people …” Mike Leigh’s praise for Olmi’s film stands as a very apt description of Leigh’s own work, which has, from the very beginning, concerned itself with “the experience of ordinary people”: working, raising families, dealing with loss and illness, trying to communicate and connect. Howie Movshovitz defines Leigh’s output as a sustained attempt to “capture the texture of real life” and terms such as “social realism,” “kitchen-sink drama” and “naturalism” invariably appear in discussions of the British auteur’s work. However, none of these terms seems quite adequate in capturing the very distinctive brand of humane insight and uproarious social comedy that characterises Leigh’s film-making. As the director states, “no work of art is truly naturalistic. Art is not real life and has to be organised, designed and distilled because it’s dramatic.”

Leigh’s very particular process of “organising, designing and distilling” his material remains one of the most original and commented upon in contemporary cinema. In recent years, the director has become somewhat more open about discussing elements of his method - even while keeping the more “esoteric” aspects firmly behind closed doors. Famously, Leigh’s projects begin with no script, starting instead from a basic premise that is developed through lengthy improvisation sessions with his actors, who initially base their characters on a person - or various people - that they know. The months of rehearsal result in Leigh’s composition of a bare-bones shooting script, which is refined, distilled, and finalised after more improvisation, by the time shooting commences. The process is organic, finely detailed and highly collaborative; small wonder that many actors (including his unofficial “repertory company” of performers: Alison Steadman, Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Peter Wight, Phil Davis, the late Katrin Cartlidge and, more recently, Martin Savage, Eddie Marsan and Sally Hawkins) have frequently described their work with Leigh as among the most rewarding and fulfilling of their careers.

Leigh’s idiosyncratic methods were initially developed in his work for the theatre, a medium in which he continues to do vital work (cf. his stunning new play Grief). However, it was a viewing of John Cassavetes’ seminal Shadows (1959) that first alerted him to the possibility of “creating complete plays from scratch with a group of actors.” His first film, Bleak Moments , a devastating anatomisation of English reserve and failures in communication, appeared in 1971, but it would be another 17 years before his next feature film, High Hopes was made. In the intervening period, Leigh dedicated himself to working for television, producing a string of memorable dramas for the BBC’s celebrated ‘Play for Today’ strand, including Hard Labour (1973), Nuts in May (1976), The Kiss of Death (1977) and Abigail’s Party (1977). Following High Hopes and Life is Sweet (1990), the turning point in Leigh’s career came with Naked, an epically-scaled and often brutal drama which tracks its garrulous anti-hero, Johnny (David Thewlis), from Manchester to the streets of London, exploring his fairly vicious relationships with women; the film’s confrontational approach was likened by one (hostile) critic to “a mugging.” Naked was followed by the equally extraordinary Secrets and Lies, perhaps the quintessential Leigh film in its subtle, immersive drawing together of a group of extended family members, colleagues and friends. His camerawork characterised by what David Thompson has called a “detached, medical watchfulness” Leigh often bases his scenes around social engagements, with their ensuing dramas, revelations and embarrassments; the climactic, emotionally charged barbecue sequence in Secrets and Lies is, in many ways, the Leigh scene par excellence.

Leigh has broadened his scope to encompass period drama with Topsy-Turvy and Vera Drake (2004), bringing his distinctive aesthetic (and most of his favourite actors) to bear on these projects, which subtly challenge the conventions of heritage cinema. Sometimes prone to caricature and over-emphasis, Leigh’s weaker films can be obvious and schematic, occasionally relying too heavily on broadly-drawn contrasts between characters and taking a rather judgemental attitude towards the protagonists. His best films, in contrast, work to change and challenge the audiences’ pre-judgements about characters, and cast a sharp yet sympathetic eye upon human frailty and resilience. According to Andy Medhurst, the director‘s skill lies in “making moving (in both senses of the word) pictures that evoke the horrors and humours of being English.” For all the national specificity of his work, however, it is, finally, Leigh’s sustained engagement with “the great, hard, real adventure of living and surviving from day to day” that makes his films resonate so profoundly for audiences across the world.

Theatre Review: Grief (Cottesloe, National Theatre)

Hearts break very quietly in a 1950s suburban living-room in Grief, Mike Leigh’s exquisite new play which is currently in previews at the National Theatre and follows this year’s well-received revival of his 1979 play Ecstasy at Hampstead and in the West End. (Despite the complementary one-word titles, there are no direct connections between these two dramas, as had been speculated in some quarters.) Appearing in Terence Rattigan’s centenary year, this new play marks Leigh out - at once surprisingly and not surprisingly at all - as an heir to Rattigan in many ways: an acute anatomist of English reserve, of petty cruelties, of failures in communication and love. Having been dissatisfied with Leigh’s last film, Another Year (2010), on a number of counts, I was delighted to find myself completely absorbed by Grief, a play which ranks, I think, as one of the director’s finest works to date, and certainly one of his most tender, poignant and humane.

The setting is the middle-class household of Dorothy (Lesley Manville), a war widow who resides with her bachelor brother Edwin (Sam Kelly) and teenage daughter Victoria (Ruby Bentall) in a Greater London suburb. The year is 1957, in an England in which signs of social change are just beginning to stir. Changes are occurring within the family, too: Edwin is about to retire and Victoria is preparing for her O’Levels. Though clearly plagued by depression and still affected by her husband’s death, Dorothy is a kind and outwardly cheerful woman, who plays the gracious hostess as she receives visits from her old friends Gertrude (Marion Bailey) and Muriel (Wendy Nottingham). But as the New Year approaches the situation in the household darkens considerably, as mother and daughter come into conflict and the extent of Victoria’s frustration and resentment is revealed.

Fractious parent/teen relationships have been a staple of Leigh’s output from Life is Sweet (1990) to All or Nothing (2002), and they come to form the focus of Grief, a play deeply concerned with generational clashes and the reluctance of parents to accept changes in their children. And Leigh’s delicate and atmospheric production, beautifully lit by Paul Pyant and meticulously designed by Alison Chitty, draws us gently but inexorably into intense intimacy with the characters, pulling our sympathies every which way.

The principal problem with Another Year, for me, was that it resorted to Leigh’s bad habit of setting up over-obvious contrasts between the protagonists and encouraging the audience to pass judgement on them. Grief avoids such traps. Holding more than one perspective in balance, the play simply presents behaviour, and gives us the space to draw our own conclusions. Dorothy’s firm belief in “the rules” and her refusal to yield to her daughter on certain picky points of social propriety are frustrating, yet Manville’s empathetic performance succeeds in showing that the character is motivated by deep concern and love for her child. At times, the play’s portrait of parent/teen communication break-down threatens to teeter on the brink of cliché. But the perceptiveness and emotional exactitude of Leigh and his actors is such that Victoria and Dorothy’s conflicts stir many small shocks of recognition. Registering distress with the slightest flinch, the brilliance of Manville’s subtle, captivating performance is that it keeps us attuned to Dorothy’s feelings all the time: we have the sense of watching her thinking, in close-up, throughout. And she’s well-matched by the excellent Bentall, who unpicks Victoria’s terseness to reveal a truly disturbing sense of alienation and tendency towards self-sabotage: her final (wordless) scene may haunt you for days to come.

The production’s rhythm is extremely satisfying: the scenes flow elegantly, each carrying its precise emotional weight, and revealing some gem of perception or resonant detail, while generating a strong cumulative tension across the interval-less two hour running time. (And Leigh isn’t afraid of moments of silence and stillness on stage, either.) As in Topsy-Turvy (1999) and Vera Drake (2004) the director again proves himself a master at writing believable period dialogue too: the interactions here feel totally authentic, emerging out of the social context in a way that never seems forced or contrived. When Dorothy, Gertrude and Muriel reminisce about their work as telephonists, or when Edwin and Dorothy talk about their parents, these moments have a genuine weight. (The sequences benefit from the performers’ shared professional history as “Leigh regulars,” too.) And the scenes in which Manville and Kelly sing together - with the lyrics of songs like “Goodnight Sweetheart,” “Smile,” and “Apple Blossom Time” expressing the deep feelings that the characters aren’t otherwise able to articulate - are simply lovely; they suggest such a close, intuitive brother/sister bond that the progressive deterioration of Dorothy and Edwin’s relationship is truly upsetting to witness. Again, the challenge of human contact is Leigh’s primary concern throughout. A scene in which Bailey’s garrulous Gertrude finds Dorothy in distress and the two women almost - but don’t quite - win their way through to honest communication is especially moving.

There’s also lovely work from Dorothy Duffy as Dorothy’s brash, no-nonsense new cleaner, Maureen, and, in particular, from David Horovitch as Hugh, the jovial Doctor friend of Edwin’s who drops by to boast about his son’s achievements and giggle over his own witticisms.

Those who prefer the more savage and satirical side to Leigh may be disappointed in Grief, a play which, while rich in humorous moments, avoids the snide tone that can crop up in his work. (The director certainly seems to be mellowing on class issues: following the glowing endorsement given to those smug bourgeois Tom and Gerri in Another Year, the middle-class matrons here are subjected to only the most affectionate mockery.) As in other Leigh texts, there’s also a certain inevitability to the trajectory of the piece: you may find yourself wishing for a less predictable ending. But that doesn’t stop the conclusion from packing a terrific emotional punch. Perfectly pitched and powerfully affecting, this great production is one of the strongest that the National Theatre has offered us in a patchy year. Good Grief indeed.

The production runs for two hours without interval and is booking until 28^th January. Many performances are already sold-out but further information is available at the NT website.