Life is Sweet (1990)

Life is Sweet (Mike Leigh, 1990)

Forty minutes through Mike Leigh's family drama Life is Sweet, you get a feeling that Leigh's title to his film might be a tad bit too sarcastic, as what's been shown so far is anything but sweet. We've already been introduced to all of his colorful characters. First is Wendy (Alison Steadman), introduced teaching a bunch of little girls some choreography, is the bubbly matriarch of the film's dysfunctional family. Andy (Jim Broadbent), is the impossibly hopeful patriarch who works as a chef for a hotel, but insists on putting up his food business by buying a wreck of a fast food caravan from shady businessman Patsy (Stephen Rea). Wendy and Andy have twins, who aside from their pale skin and their lifelessly blond hair, are nothing alike. Natalie (Claire Skinner) has a boyish haircut, prefers long sleeve shirts to dresses, but is admirably helpful and empathic to her family. Nicola (Jane Horrocks) has disheveled hair, ticks and twitches, and is impossibly anti-social.

There are other characters to this film. Aubrey (Timothy Spall) is the family friend who has just started his French restaurant, urging his long-time fantasy Wendy to serve as waitress. There's Nicola's secret lover (David Thewlis), who prefers to know the anti-social twin rather than serve her curious kinks and fetishes. Lastly, there's the part-time cook (Moya Brady) in Aubrey's new restaurant, a sort of competitor to Aubrey's sexual advances to the uninterested Wendy.

It's a delightful film that slowly unfolds in interesting paths as it goes along. Although the talkative brandishing of several insults between the family members, the unending nagging, and the sweet nothings, thrown from and to by the characters to each other make this film a bit repetitive and in a way taxing to watch, Leigh makes up for it by slowly unveiling a very sweet emotional core that is only revealed when the film is viewed as a whole. The film seems like an episodic TV sitcom, and I think the film's premise may provide for an interesting sitcom pilot, but it is still very much a Mike Leigh film wherein he tries to reveal the lower-middle class dilemma within the context of a highly unusual British family. Here, he squeezes the characters to reveal their innermost angsts, their dreams (for Andy, to start his very own business, for Wendy, every mother's wish for her kids to be happy), and quirks. Leigh does not outrightly proclaim these as Britain's lower-middle class' aspirations, but the message comes off as strongly as if he painted the words of his message in bright neon red.

Leigh is gifted to have Britain's most outstanding actors to complete the film. Jim Broadbent's Andy is aptly gullible with his bright blue eyes giving off a childlike warmth to the father figure. David Thewlis, Stephen Rea and Timothy Spall provide excellent back-up to the family, putting up an outsider's view to the outlandishly stylized family. For Rea, the family is a source of exploited income. For Spall, a release of sexually repressed energy, and for Thewlis, an urge to uncover but just couldn't. But Life is Sweet primarily belongs to Alison Steadman who in a scene suddenly changes from biting, sarcastic matriarch to a hopeful sweet mom to a child in trouble. It is during that beautifully acted and staged scene wherein Steadman and Jane Horrocks exchange explanations as to why things are going that way, and that despite that, the family has become intact, is when I acknowledge the fact that the title to the film is not in fact, sarcastic but is the theme of Leigh's message: that despite everything, life is still sweet and one must learn to treasure it and to hope to truly appreciate the hidden delicacy of life.

King of New York (1990)

King of New York (Abel Ferrara, 1990)

Frank White (Christopher Walken) has just been released in prison. Somewhere in the city, a Colombian drug lord is murdered point blank inside a telephone booth, and another one, inside a posh hotel room. Frank is escorted by two beautiful women, and for the first time after several years in prison, sees the streets of New York. It certainly doesn't look good. His kingdom has fallen, and it is up to him to recreate it. He separates his loyal allies from the uncooperative enemies, and kills the latter, if necessary.

Abel Ferrara's King of New York builds up the character of Frank White with royal, or eminent ease. He is unpredictable, ruthless, yet classy and charismatic. He is surrounded by the likes of Jimmy Jump (Laurence Fishburne), an over-the-top and amoral murderer-crack addict, yet he can also rub shoulders with the upper crust. His girlfriend is his lawyer, a famous counsel who manages to deflect criminal charges with surprising ease. Their idea of romance involves fucking inside a subway train. Interestingly, Frank White literally and figuratively fucks the law in public, simply because he can get away with it through hi philanthropy, his under-the-table tactics, and his famous violent zest. The first half of the film introduces us to Frank's world, a world of contradictions and rampant amorality. Humanity is deprived but is seen only in a few instances. Despite everything, Frank sees himself as in the right, and he merely makes money out of the city's inherent sins. He fashions himself a mere businessman.

The other half of the film concerns the coppers, a team of three: Roy Bishop (Vincent Argo), Dennis Gilley (David Caruso), and Thomas Flanigan (Wesley Snipes). Since Frank White's release, they've been finding loopholes to finally pin him down. Frank, like a snake, evades everything they put against him, to the point that Dennis and Thomas finally give up on the law's processes, and attempt to kill Frank instead. The resulting action sequence is the film's highest point: a high octane car chase, pumped up with bullet play by a hyperactive Lawrence Fishburne whose onscreen insanity is leveled by Christopher Walken's unintimidated cool. It's a thrilling setpiece, and showcases the best by cinematographer Bojan Bazelli who lights the underbellies of New York City with careful intensity, evoking danger and eventual demise.

The film suffers from sloppy writing by Nicholas St. John. Many of the characters' decisions in the film seem convoluted and unnatural, especially those coming from a carefully and intricately designed Frank White. The film ends however in a very powerful scene. Frank White just escaped a close gunfight against Roy Bishop, and bloodily walks to a crowded street and gets a cab. Traffic won't move, and the sounds of sirens of the cops' cars are heard. Frank White, the big boss of New York's underworld, and the emerging financier of New York's public works is finally venerated for what he is. A horde of immobilized cars and cabs, armed coppers ready to shoot at will, and Frank White, finally dying from loss of blood. It's a terrific ending, I think. It's an ending that justifies Frank's character yet doesn't belittle him into a petty criminal. The king of New York certainly deserves something more than being caught by the law he literally fucked the moment he walked out the prison, let him die a death he deserves, honorable in an oddly acceptable way.