User reviews

Mike Leigh's latest film Another Year follows the story of a happily married couple approaching their retirement years. Their warm relationship offers them security as the the film progresses. Their friends and family, by contrast, all struggle to some extent with unhappiness, and a sense that their best years may be behind them.

The film is a story of ageing; the small events that can make life either comforting or unbearable; and the refuge that companionship can offer.

Rut Sheen's role as Gerri is superb. Her open, welcoming face invites her friend and colleague Mary (played by Lesley Manville) to open up to her about her drunken fears of where her life is leading. Jim Broadbent's Tom is charming and self-effacing, confident in his own happiness yet nonplussed at the failure of his friend Ken – Peter Wight – to come to terms with growing old.

The film dwells on the small, predominantly non-verbal signals that reveal emotional and social insecurity. Leigh's direction reminds us that the sharpest insights into character lie in moments where we think we at our most concealed. Faces betray what we wish were kept private – at moments where verbal communication fails, physical expression lights up hidden fears, passions, failings and desires.

Leigh treats all his characters with a certain dignity – whilst there are moments where we are encouraged to laugh at their social inadequacies, for the most part we suffer along with them, knowing that their experiences are all too near reality to take lightly. We encourage Tom and Gerri to keep supporting their despairing friends, yet knowing at the same time that their married happiness can only serve to mock their friends' lonely lives further. The four strictly partitioned seasons of the film point towards a growing anxiety that it may in fact be too late for these lost characters. The cyclical nature of the structure suggests that there is no real remedy for those left unloved and lonely at the film's conclusion.

From the opening scene, where a woman silently struggles to recollect the happiest moment in her life, to the point when the dialogue slowly fades away to leave Mary isolated and forlorn, we cannot help but be both enchanted and dismayed by the emotional honesty of Mike Leigh's characters. This is what sets out the director as a truly gifted artist – his ability to heighten the routine into the dramatic; and to make the trivial, truly tragic.

This is a big movie tackling big themes, and may, like Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh's previous film) prove extremely Marmitish. The latter comment may prove hard to understand if you're not British, and that's just like the film (Marmite is a British spread made from yeast extract with a love-it-or-hate-it umami/savoury/salty flavour). Another Year deals with a particularly British form of social breakdown and emotional constipation.

In Britain, from the 40s to the 70s there was widespread use of an exam system called the 11+. Up until the age of 11-12 students were schooled together, after that point, students considered to have more potential by the standards of the 11+ examinations were streamed separately in Grammar Schools, prepared for success, whilst those below the boundary line were sent to Secondary Modern Schools where the focus was much more on practical education (bricklaying, "home economics", woodwork, etc). The legacy of this system has been huge social resentment. There is a feeling in Another Year that the system is back, in the form of university education. With the UK attempting to educate 50% of the secondary school student population to university level, a socially engineered bifurcation to haves and have-nots is being created once again.

All of the characters in the film are from working class backgrounds and yet the fortunes that life has graced them with are distinctly uneven, they have gone in different directions, absent any idea of a shared experience that may have been the rock of previous generations of Britons. Graduates Tom and Gerri (pun intended) have fulfilling careers, heartfelt love for one another, high incomes, and have had the opportunity to travel widely. Tom's brother and Gerri's friend Mary are aging and alone, undereducated, lacking in the kind of accomplishments that are social currency, living with hurt, and in Mary's case, desperation. The message is not all one way, old friend of the family Ken is also a graduate and yet has not managed to find a place in life either.

Scenes in the movie almost exclusively concern Tom and Gerri's catering to this group of friends and family. They deal with the misfortunes of this circle with a mixture of humour, irony, good cooking and alcohol, but mostly conceal their compassion and are helpless onlookers.

The mating game is key here, the unwedded 40+s exist in a state of unsalved distress, futureless, scrapped. Even 30-year-old Joe, functional, graduate, well-employed and witty has struggled to find someone to be with. A notable absence in the movie is a sense of solidarity, community, public events, shared lives and shared values. There's an illiquidity in the relationships marketplace, a lack of feeling and connection, all leading to a general anomie and social constipation.

However painful the lives of Ken and Mary are, the film gives occasional glimpses of far more infernal lives, lower circles of hell where dissatisfaction has paralysed characters with rage or utter resignation. Anything more than a glimpse would have made the film unwatchable.

Gone are the days when WWII veterans would whimper their way through night-times of post-traumatic hallucination for forty years without mentioning it to a soul, however the British "stiff upper lip" still remains as a guiding principle in this movie. There is still very much the assumption that one should keep one's private hell to oneself, or else outsource emotion to a therapist.

What may be controversial in the film is the way you look at how Tom and Gerri treat Mary. A German lady in the audience voiced her opinion to Mike Leigh that the way they treated her was to look down on her, and that she felt this was inappropriate. Mike Leigh responded that the lady felt like this because she was a German and Germans did not understand irony. Maybe I suffer from the same problem because I for one felt that Mary was treated as little more than a baby, and with a certain hauteur, arms-length love. I think people who are lonely need to feel useful. Mary for example was never allowed to help with anything, though this does not excuse her, at times, appalling behaviour (depression makes people selfish, however I feel it necessary to point out as well that someone who is drowning in a river and calling for a life ring, is also being "selfish" in the same way, and I think metaphorically the position is very similar).

Dour joyless watching, maybe one for the Cabinet to watch, after the example of the film La Haine, which concentrated on French malaise and was screened in front of the French cabinet at the instigation of Prime Minister Alain Juppé.

Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), the couple at the centre of Mike Leigh's latest existential piece, couldn't be more unlike the cartoon characters who share their names. Together for several decades, their love for each other has only grown. I wouldn't complain if my marriage looked like theirs when I'm in my 50s.

When he isn't working as a geologist and she isn't counselling people, they spend their time providing solace to those who need it – Ken (Peter Wight), a straight-talking, John Smiths-drinking Yorkshireman; Ronnie (David Bradley), Tom's laconic brother whose wife has just died; and most of all Mary (Lesley Manville), a jittery colleague of Gerri's in the middle of a mid-life crisis. It is Mary who dominates the film and who most elicits our empathy. She is without love and possibly even without the hope of love. It is genuinely painful to see her disintegrate scene by scene.

As another year in Tom and Gerri's life unfolds, we see nothing particularly fascinating happen. They tend to their allotment, they invite people to their house for food and company, and they reminisce about their experiences. Nothing could be more trivial, right? Wrong. This film is about growing old and making the right choices as one gets to old age. Above all it's about recognising that happiness is less a right than an aspiration.

The word 'integrity' comes to mind when I think of Mike Leigh. Who else could convince actors to sign up to films where there was no script to begin with? Throughout his career he has eschewed the Hollywood system and has done things his own way ('Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins').

An audience member expostulated at the end, 'That wasn't very uplifting'. She's correct, but Leigh doesn't offer folly or fantasy. He's a truth-seeking social observer and commentator. What's also appealing about Leigh is that he doesn't spoon-feed his audience. His films compel the watcher to debate what they have seen and draw their own conclusions. Why should films give us answers?

I was moved by this film like no other in recent memory. One moment I was laughing uncontrollably, the next I was holding back tears. The film emphasises a sad fact: for some people, things don't always go according to plan. Sometimes we're just plain unlucky. And that's life.

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A strange and sad little film beautifully acted by its ensemble cast. Lesley Manville's agonised performance as Mary, aching with envy at the solidity and comfort of her best friend's solid marriage, must be a shoo-in for awards next year, but Ruth Sheen is also 100% believable as the endlessly patient, almost 'saintly' Gerri. Jim Broadbent's Tom teeters on the verge of hamminess, allowing Peter Wight to steal the male acting honours as Ken, another lonely and alcoholic divorcée.

After a sad Spring and a prickly Summer, Autumn brings romance to Tom and Gerri's bachelor son and Winter brings a funeral (not the one we've been dreading). Anchored by the couple's devotion to their allotment, Mike Leigh gives us a film about the seasons in our lives as well as in our vegetable patches. In life, as in the garden, some things flourish and blossom while others wither and decay.

Often humorous but mostly achingly sad, this is a very fine film about the Ordinary Lives of Ordinary People. Not to be missed.

Lesley Manville as Mary truly deserves the Best Actor Oscar for her perfectly nuanced, scary and convincing portrayal of a woman on the brink of personal desperation due to her many life mistakes and to her extremely fragile emotional nature that served to spiral her further and further down toward mental illness with every romantic disappointment and life mistake she made. Honestly, I do not think Meryl Streep could have played this role as well. Lesley was that great in it. An astounding performance, and so touching, as you felt every pain Mary felt due to Lesley's spot-on interpretation of her character's neediness and weaknesses and what they cost her.

This film tells a story(by the 4 seasons)of a year in the lives of a UK couple and their friends. Mary is a secretarial co-worker and friend of Gerri, a professional counselor and the sweet wife of her well-rumpled and very likable engineer/geologist husband, Tom(yes, Tom and Gerri). Mary is the woman we all know at some time or another in our lives.... a woman too attractive to always be alone but always is alone after every failed attempt at a relationship, always suffering badly from each failure to find what she wants so badly.

Not much of an intricate plot here, as in all Mike Leigh films, but the story was such an absorbing and typical Mike Leigh take on the day-to-day happenings in the ordinary and everyday lives of a normal UK couple and some at-risk friends. Tom and Gerri were the couple with these friends in various states of decline, and they always tried hard through their gentle patience, understanding and humor to help them and always be there for them. Ruth Sheen and the great Tom Broadbent played the wife/husband roles to perfection, and were so loving, likable and comfortable with each other and with friends that you wished you had them for your own friends. Wonderful portrayals, both.

See this film for engaging personal interaction and for the best acting performance of 2010, but be prepared for your own uncomfortable and awkward feelings throughout due to Mary's many sufferings and how her endless tales of them affected her(long-suffering)friends. It was a truly human story, sometimes warm and funny, sometimes pathetic and difficult to watch, but at the end you knew you had seen acting greatness.

Normally I write a movie review immediately after seeing the movie, because it is fresh to recollect the movie. When I was browsing the TV today and saw this movie, I stopped. I remember loving this movie when I had seen for the first time. Then I remembered that I did not write the movie review then. I was myself surprised, and I made it a point to write the review this time. So here it is.

The story is beautifully told with passing of four seasons of a year – that is why it is titled ANOTHER YEAR. Tom (Jim Broadbent) a geologist and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) a counselor are older married couple who encounter friends and family with their underlying issues.

First one is Mary (Leslie Manville) is a middle-aged divorcée receptionist, heavy alcoholic desperate seeking a new relationship – and eye Tom and Gerri's son Joe (Oliver Maltman) who is much younger - around 30 years old.

Second is Ken (Peter Wight), Tom's school friend, who is overweight, a compulsive eater, drinker and smoker.

Third is Ronnie (David Bradley) , estranged son of Tom's brother, who arrives late and is angry with everyone for not delaying his mother's funeral ceremony.

Through the relationships of these characters, director Mike Leigh beautifully exploits the togetherness and loneliness with warmth, tenderness, kindness, giving, emotional loss, yearnings, and nurturing, growing old together.

There are some well executed scenes that resonate with audiences in terms of the assembled cast and crew delivering on the spot improvisation and inventiveness in executing an endearing scene.

Mary's drunkenness, Mary's romantic advances towards Joe, Mary's reluctance and rejection of Ken's advances, Mary's hostility towards Joe's girlfriend Katie (Karina Fernandez), Mary's apology to Gerri for her behavior and the last lingering scene where Mary is lost and uncertain on a happy dinner night.

It is Mary's under-current role (exit & entry) all the way that weaves this story. It was not a wonder that Leslie Manville won several best actress awards for her brilliant portrayal of this role.

A special mention for Director Mike Leigh for writing a script and screenplay that leaves trust and scope for exceptional improvisation to imbibe the flow of scenes and characters. Not many can achieve this finesse.

I will go with 7.75 out of 10

Many, many years ago, as a young single woman, I saw a counselor, who helped me, and who I thought of as a friend. When I married my husband, I invited her to the wedding. She declined, telling me our relationship was professional only. So when, at the end of this movie, the therapist Gerri tells the disturbed Mary, who thought she was a friend of 20 years duration, to see a therapist, I had a different reaction to this movie than many others.

This movie, about the happy middle-class couple Tom and Gerri, is more a cautionary tale that "friends" are not the same as family, and that therapy and friendship evidently cannot mix. The therapist Gerri's "friend" Mary is a middle-aged, lonely, depressed co-worker who has been a frequent visitor to Tom and Gerri's home for 20 years. There are jokes that she was an "auntie" to the 30-year-old son, who, in an excruciating episode, she drunkenly hits on. When she encounters the truth that the son has a girlfriend, Mary is "inappropriate" and rude. Even worse, she is revealed as of a lower professional caste from the girlfriend, who rather irritatingly fits in beautifully with the middle-class professions of Tom and Gerri.

So Mary is a family "auntie" no longer and we learn in the final segment that she has not seen Gerri for some time outside work since the episode with the girlfriend. When she shows up at the house uninvited, Gerri and Tom are surprised to see her. We see them staring at her through the sitting room door, and I thought the expressions on their faces was so cold and even chilling. These were not the faces of friends who would normally be concerned for a friend who has come to them because of some trouble. This is when I first realized that the friendship of Tom and Gerri for Mary was only an illusion; that to them, Mary was just a person who had drifted into their orbit but who was welcome only when invited. Gerri tells Mary that Mary has "let her down" and that Gerri has had to put family first. She tells Mary that Mary should seek professional therapy for her problems. This speech is delivered in a professional voice. Gerri, who is supposed to be warm and nurturing, is cold to Mary, as cold as she was in her counseling session with Imelda Staunton which starts the movie.

At the same time, Tom's brother, Ronnie, who has been widowed, has not been seen at all during the prior year and has not even been mentioned. But he was invited to stay; he is family. In the end, at the final dinner, the camera works its way slowly around the table. The talk among Tom, Gerry, their son Joe and his girlfriend Katie is jovial and cheerful, and, I would think, unbearable for someone who has just days earlier lost his spouse. The camera hits Ronnie, who is still nearly catatonic. And finally the camera focuses on Mary. You see on her face that she has realized that she is not part of the family, she is not the "auntie" nor even really welcome.

This movie, I think, is remarkable for eliciting so many responses.

First, a confession: I don't enjoy watching Mike Leigh films. For me, they're a bit of an ordeal, rather than a pleasant night out. 'Another Year' was no exception; but it certainly made me think...

Imagine you're looking at a picture, one in which there's a wealth of painstakingly drawn detail. For the sake of argument, let's call it 'The gulf between tolerance and understanding': A family is gathered around a table in a large suburban kitchen. They're clearly happy and comfortable, all are laughing and chatting together; a man and woman, nearing retirement, and a younger couple, holding hands lovingly. From the clothes they wear and the surroundings, you'd struggle to place the date; it could be any time in the last forty years.

In their midst are two others. A man, gaunt and unkempt, his grey moustache and fingers tinged yellow with tobacco; and a middle-aged woman, one hand clasped around an empty wine glass, as she fumbles for a nearby bottle with the other. Both stare from the picture, unsmiling and trance-like; clearly apart from the family scene playing out around them.

What thoughts and emotions would the artist of the picture be trying to convey? Well, work that out and you may be on your way to understanding this film, of which this is the closing shot.

The film begins in a similar vein, with a woman that hasn't slept properly for a year, her look also vacant and haunted. She doesn't drink, has seemingly no means of escape from what's troubling her; and can't remember when she was last happy. A doctor asks her questions, trying to find out why she can't sleep… and the story begins. It's a scene that needs to be watched very carefully; without it, the point of the film may be lost.

Another Year closer to the grave? Or '…what have we done? Another Year over…' (Lennon) My feelings are that the latter is pretty close: the central characters have grown comfortably numb in their middle class lives, pottering in their vegetable patch and commuting to work. They both seem blissfully in control, self-sufficient, free from stress and unhappiness; or perhaps they've always managed to skilfully avoid it? During the course of the film, though, we also see the sad lives of others: their friends, family and associates, people who could do with their advice and involvement. Is it given? I refer you back to the picture. You guess.

As the closing credits roll, perhaps we should all know what's keeping the woman awake?

The plot and character details are outlined elsewhere. This film is a superficial view of deeply unhappy/superficial people whose reasons for deep unhappiness are unexplored and unresolved. Since we learn almost nothing about these people (and they certainly seem to learn nothing about themselves), it is, worst sin of all, boring.

The emotional center/hole of this film is Gerri, the counselor, whose inadequacy/ ineffectiveness is highlighted by an early scene with a potential patient, the actress Emelda Staunton, a working class person who presents with depression. After an introductory session, it seems highly unlikely that Staunton will ever return since Gerri makes no connection to her, which is the theme of the entire movie. (Notably for a real therapist, the first order of business besides making a connection is to determine Staunton's suicide risk, which seems considerable (she is asking for sleeping pills and suggesting that "sleep" is the answer for her problems. Avoiding the real larger problems is also a theme of this movie.) We then see Gerri as the enabler for the alcoholic Mary, a secretary at her work, who she has known for 20 years. They go out to drink after work occasionally where Mary's drinking is not subtle. It becomes apparent that Mary has had a series of spectacularly inappropriate failed romantic relationships (including one with a married man) and during the movie, an attempt at relationships with Gerri's son, 20 or so years her junior, and Tom's brother whose wife has just died. No effort is made in the movie to understand where this behavior comes from. Remarkably, Gerri only suggests therapy for these destructive behaviors after Mary's behavior threatens Gerri in her family. Other developments show Tom and Gerri don't really care for Mary at all and probably never have. It is the ultimate irony that it is Gerri who tells Mary she needs to take "responsibility for her actions" when it is Gerri who needs to take responsibility for her own actions.

Tom and Gerri's relationship is quite solid if smug (and is apparently the main draw for the movie as a whole) but in many ways is a cliché of male female roles, Tom being the technical sort and Gerri being in the helper professions. Tom gets away with being emotionally clueless. When asked by Gerri what to do with Mary, his reply is that if Gerri doesn't know, how could he. Tom's two brothers seem to be the logical extension of his clueless-ness. Ronnie is essentially catatonic and totally estranged from his only son, while another brother (who we only see briefly) is called a jerk even by Tom. There is no explanation for any of this.

Joe, the "perfect son" works as a lawyer for the poor where his condescension to his clients is equally striking. Joe and his new girlfriend Katie's relationship seems designed to parody his parents relationship. While there seems to be the implication of a close relationship of Joe with his parents, in fact, he kept the existence of his girlfriend from them for three months, suggesting a substantial distance (the girl friend had no problem telling her parents). His introduction of her to them is bizarre, having her literally jump out at them from behind a doorway, more or less the physical equivalent of springing her on them after three months. The parents take this entirely in stride and seem to think nothing of this, trivializing what they have been waiting for for who knows how long. We see no discussion among Tom and Gerri what this might mean for them as a family or how this makes them feel. This serves to emphasize the distance the film has from the actual characters.

Over and over again, Tom or Gerri ask "how are you" when it is completely obvious that the person to whom this is addressed is collapsing.

All in all, a series of poorly connected people with no insights or resolution. If that is what you want, here it is.

In Mike Leigh's new slice of life, Another Year, a married couple who have managed to remain blissfully happy into their crumbling autumn days are surrounded over the course of the four seasons of one seemingly average year by friends, colleagues, and family, many of whom appear to suffer some degree of unhappiness or at least confusion. The film is nicely segmented into chapters, following the seasons. All of life is there - from birth, to a funeral. Strangely, or conveniently, given the apparently troubled lives all round, She works as a psychotherapist, while He builds things, but both spend their spare time together growing vegetables in their allotment. Mary, the secretary in her clinic, takes over the centre of the story as she gradually moves into more of everyone's lives. Or perhaps it's just that the film gradually opens up the relationship that was already there. Just as it is with all the extra characters. As it's a Mike Leigh film, all the actors will all have been living "in character" for maybe six months before breezing through, stirring up the plot with their back story and emotional infrastructure.

Lesley Manville, as Mary, the lonely and unstable girl of a certain age - 40, going on 17, really steals this in the final part, which gets even more intense than the rest of it. One thing I noticed right away was that adding to the intensity of the Mike Leigh close-ups, it's all shot in high-definition digital. But in the end it's the total effect that works. The apparent non-acting. The marvellous thing about Leigh is the way he shows really ordinary people doing really ordinary things and makes them really important. He is so compassionate towards everyone in his stories. You just can't help caring, too.

Greetings again from the darkness. How DARE he? Mike Leigh is such a non-compliant filmmaker. He just refuses to follow the rules ... and film goers are the benefactors of his daring. Mind you, his daring is not in the regards of special effects, stunt work or trick photography. No sir. His daring is with the subject, theme, tone and characters. He is ... GASP ... unafraid of real people! If you have seen Mr. Leigh's work in "Happy-Go-Lucky" or "Vera Drake", you understand that his films can be simplistic on the surface, while carrying multiple layers of commentary and observations. He also has the classic British sense of humor in that very few "punchlines" exist. Instead the humor comes in allowing the viewer to recognize the characters as someone they know, or God forbid, even their own self!

Mr. Leigh has a history of making films without a script ... only broad based outlines for the characters. The actors then work to fill in the details of the individuals, which in turn, forms a story. This explains why the story does not follow the traditional arc. In fact, the story has no real beginning or ending. What we see are the interactions of people who are friends, relatives, co-workers, acquaintances and strangers.

The foundation of the film, as well as the foundation for most of the other characters in the film, is the happily married couple of Tom and Gerri, played by the terrific Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen. This is a couple who not only love and respect each other, but also enjoy being together. Their friends and family come in and out of their lives, but their bond is strong.

Key amongst this group is their friend, and Gerri's co-worker, Mary (Lesley Manville). Mary is someone we all recognize. She is single, not getting any younger, desperately trying to avoid loneliness (too often with a bottle), masking her fear through fake excitement, and latched onto the security blanket offered by Tom and Gerri's friendship.

When family friend Ken (Peter Wight) makes a move on Mary, she shuns him because of his lack of perfection. She always thinks she can do better. When she begins fixating on Tom and Gerri's son Joe (Oliver Maltman), we really feel her pain but just want to slap some sense into her. The relationships all take a hit when Mary shows up for dinner and is introduced to Joe's new girlfriend ... a wonderfully charming and talented Katie (Karina Fernandez). Mary acts the selfish fool and it drives a wedge between she and Gerri. There is even a line of dialogue earlier on ... never come between a mother and her son! Another character we are witness to includes the great Imelda Staunton as a depressed middle-aged woman who comes to Gerri for professional guidance. We also meet David Bradley as Tom's older brother, Ronnie, whose wife has recently passed.

All of these situations and personalities are balanced by Tom and Gerri as they provide a stable environment ... it's as if they are a fountain of sanity from which everyone wishes to drink. As an added touch, none of the characters are Hollywood beauties. Broadbent and Ms. Sheen would never be mistaken for Brad and Angelina. Rather they are more likely to look like someone you know ... and better yet, their characters live like people you WANT to know. So again I ask ... How dare he?

Another Year is the kind of film an actor wishes they had been in and any director wishes they had made. Mike Leigh's skillful directing is at its peak. Long, lingering shots of the characters angst (which normally frustrate the audience) are achieved in an effortless way. The acting is so flawless that it is difficult to find fault. The story is simple and meandering...but it works, and works incredibly well. Another Year will not be to the taste of the young kick-cutting action packed generation. It requires a mature audience or an audience that have at least pondered about what their life would be like after their forties.

This will gain nominations and should win Oscars.

Unlike most Hollywood films that mainly depict the lives of quirky young, well-to-do suburbanites, Mike Leigh's Another Year, shows a mature, apparently well-matched, and devoted couple that has been together for 35 years and their efforts to offer solace to their not so fortunate friends. The film is divided into four segments, each describing one of the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Leigh's Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) show begins when Gerri, a medical counselor, attempts to minister to Janet, a sleep-deprived, depressed older woman (Imelda Staunton) without any emotional response.

"On a scale of 1 to 10", she asks the patient, "How would you rate your happiness?" The answer not surprisingly is a "One", but Janet refuses to discuss her personal life any further and Gerri is left in a state of frustration. Though we never see Janet again, this episode sets the gloom scale for the entire film as moderate to high. Another Year tests our tolerance of unsympathetic characters to the limit. Normally, those in a healthy relationship want to surround themselves with others that reflect their own space, but the fact that Tom and Gerri do not is either a jarring incongruity, or belies the fact that they have everything so together.

Gerri's husband Tom is a 60-something Geological Engineer and, contrary to the popular Hollywood notion that all families are dysfunctional, his relationship with his wife seems to work. They actually talk to each other, make jokes, tend to their garden where they grow organic food, and communicate well with their only child, Joe (Oliver Maltman), an unmarried 30-year-old attorney who works with poor people. Tom and Gerri entertain quite often and one of their regular visitors is Mary who is performed by Leslie Manville as almost a caricature of a neurotic. Mary is a woman of about fifty years of age who works in Gerri's office as a receptionist. She is divorced and dresses in a provocative way to appear younger than she is in order to attract men.

Though she seems at first like a bundle of energy talking about how content she is and how much she values her independence, with the passing of each season, it becomes clearer that she is a very lonely and depressed alcoholic who is in desperate need of companionship, and her woes gradually take over the film. The parade of sad loners continues when the Tom and Gerri bring Ken (Peter Wight), an old friend of Tom's to stay with them for a short visit. Ken is single, overweight and has a drinking problem reflected on the T-shirt he wears to their home "Less Thinking, More Drinking", a slogan that might be used as a metaphor for the entire film.

Ken is unable to find a partner to be with and, like Mary, is full of debilitating self pity and a negative self image. Ken makes an effort to interest Mary in himself, but she pushes him away, though she has no qualms about flirting with Joe even though he is dating Katie (Karina Fernandez), a bubbly Occupational Therapist. Without subtlety or nuance, Mary jealously gives Katie dirty looks and treats her rudely. Like many people who believe that happiness lies in accumulating things, Mary buys a used car and this makes her happy, at least for a few days, until the car acts up, she gets lost a few times, and collects parking tickets.

Things go downhill from there when the wife of Tom's uncommunicative brother Ronnie (David Bradley) dies suddenly. At the family gathering afterward, Mary drops in without phoning first and sadly seeks a relationship with the distraught and uncommunicative Ronnie and the mood of the film turns from bearably dark to unbearably darker. On the surface, Tom and Gerri show their caring by wanting to be there for their friends and give them someone to lean on; however, it is all on a very superficial level, one that never threatens their comfort zone and it never dawns on them that some tough love may be needed.

Neither Gerri nor Tom is willing to confront their friends by reminding them that they have the ability to transform their life if they would only wake up to their own strengths and end their self pitying act before it is too late. The only help Gerri suggests is for Mary to "try a culture holiday" for a change of pace. Neither attempt to put any limits on their friends' drinking habits, always offering them just "one more" and incongruously allowing Mary to drive Ken and her only son to the train station after she has had a few drinks. Another Year is an energy drainer, a "feel bad" bleak fest almost from start to finish with only a few moments of comic relief. The only real joy I felt was in finally seeing the end credits roll.

Mike Leighs wonderfully ironic yet sweet look at life takes a little twist in this super ensemble movie which centers around Tom and Gerri and shows us these characters mainly as reflected by their friends and kin. What makes the twist is something written in a different review and which is apparently a Continental European viewpoint if I must believe Mr. Leigh. The minor flaw of this film is that Tom and Gerri hardly develop and if they do, it really is downwards as - when you leave the theatre - you are left with some questions as to whether they really are as warm and supportive as they appear prima facie. Why are all their friends alcoholic losers? And why are they so supportive, yet so aloof? We found a few scenes that show how Tom and Gerri feel about Mary (a shoe-in for any award because of the slightly over-the-top, nail biter performance by Lesley Manville). Their friends really make them feel better about themselves. Whatever may be of this Continental take, it is a tremendously enjoyable movie, as always.

Mike Leigh, in my experience, always produces films for grown ups. Thoughtful, brave and interesting. His actors are also excellent. He has built his reputation on realism. The acting in this film was as good as ever. But I was left wondering why I felt so dissatisfied. I reflected and concluded that the film is very sentimental in its portrayal of marriage. The married couple here are, apparently, blissfully happy. They clearly share interests, so far so good. But there were several points in the film where it seemed to me that there bliss was founded on neither of them actually challenging the other's opinions or behaviour. Is this really what Leigh intends us to see as the recipe for a happy marriage? The moment there is the whiff of conflict, shutting up? The issue of their son was also hinted at but never explored. Even more curiously this happily married couple appear to socialise solely with singleton social mis-fits. The single people in this film are unremittingly portrayed as lonely, drunk, sad, incompetent or aggressive. How realistic is this? It seemed that we were being treated to a piece of propaganda in favour of marriage. Finally, what happened to the opening character, played by Imelda Staunton? Either this section was irrelevant and should have been cut, or it had a relevance and was left hanging. Untidy and lacking in form.

A happily married couple is followed over the changing seasons. The portray is that of harmony, love and togetherness. This is as perfect as it gets. Then we get introduced to their friends who are frequently invited for dinner and drinks. They all have something in common : Broken marriages, alcoholism and self denial. The contrast couldn't be more surreal. Especially Mary, who is longing for love and friendship. Her emotional hurt is tangible.

This movie is not about the couple or anything else, it is about Mary and her shambolic life, the pain that she derives from loneliness and her utter failure to get her life back together. Brilliantly and stunningly directed by Leigh, this is a masterpiece of portraying a character that will be, strikingly and tragically, all too familiar with most of us.

First of all would like to say that i really enjoyed the film. However it became really striking to me as to the profession of Gerri and at the same time with her complete carelessness for friends and family in her real life. I am talking about the double face. This is also clear in the end scenes when Mary, who she doesn't reject as a friend, and acts as politically polite to, tells her all she needs is a true friend, and she refers her to get professional help where people don't really care unless you pay money for their services. It just took me to really respect the psychologist profession even less, as unless you pay me i don't care, how fake. No wonder i never wanted to really go as can't stand people pretending to care for 1 hour.

One of the films I wanted to see before I drew 2010 to a proper close was Another Year, and see it I did. Did I love it? Since it's one of the absolute best movies of 2010, the answer is a sweet and swift "YES!"

The film spans over the course of one year in the life of a happy, and healthy elderly couple, Tom and Gerri. The two of them have a son named Joe, and over the time frame of the film, try to spread their own cheer to their less than cheery friends, such as the distraught Ken, Tom's under spoken and passive brother Ronnie, and their alcoholic, and also quite conflicted friend Mary.

First praise goes to the cast, featuring a huge group of characters, and none of them feel wasted. Each and every one of the film's actors and actresses give fleshed out, and fully dimensional performances. Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen, who are the closest things to leading in this film, give a convincing portrayal of gleeful romance. Other cast members who do a convincing job include David Bradley, Peter Wight, and the miracle that is Lesley Manville, who steals every scene she's in, gripping us with her enigmatic exterior, until delivering a punch to the gut in the film's final 20 minutes that broke yours truly down to a teary mess.

But the real star of Another Year is Mike Leigh. He not only extracts excellent performances from his cast as a director, but his screenplay is brilliant. It still features his same signature brand of humor, but it's toned down this time around, giving the themes of love, life, and what it means to live and love an intimate sense of exploration, even if we the audience are afraid of the outcome. One of the year's VERY best screenplays as far as I'm concerned.

However, as enthusiastic as I am, I wouldn't recommend the movie to EVERYONE, because the simple fact is: the movie is depressing. Said themes mentioned earlier grow more saddening and grim over time, moments of genuine joy are few and far between, and the "Winter" segment of the film is the most emotionally devastating piece of cinema I've seen in years.

Still, if you do decide to see Another Year, which I give **** out of **** by the way, I think you'll find a lot to admire about it.

Leigh is a good filmmaker, no doubt. The film has a very nice look, changing subtly for the seasons, winter being rather blue, as is what the film has made many viewers. Acting is superb and the script/unscript is fine, though in its worst moments I thought of Handke whom I dislike quite a bit. Since everybody here knows the story line I think all I can appropriately add is my disdain for the "happy" couple and their 30 year old boy. As an earlier poster and a German lady in an audience where Leigh took questions thought, this couple had no business having any kind of relationship with the poor victim of life and their noblesse oblige. They were in control and they should have been responsible for drawing boundaries. Instead they treated her with barely disguised disdain. The relationship was a contrivance that allowed Leigh to get even with all those irksome aunts he disliked as a child. The number of disapproving eyebrow and glance movements among mom, pop, and junior became tiresome, as well. A nasty side of Leigh I did not previously observe.