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.

Vera Drake (2004)

Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, 2004)

I may very well consider Mike Leigh's Berlin Film Festival winning Vera Drake a modern masterpiece where all the elements of filmmaking coherently jive to present a touching and arguably objective debate on the moral dilemmas surrounding abortion. It's quite easy to make a film that is thick on issues but it's very hard, almost impossible, to make a film that discusses issues and still remain right in the middle without being labeled as being unopinionated or plain cowardly. Vera Drake achieves that impossibility by pinning down the moral dilemma of abortions in the motherly face of a pudgy old woman, Vera (Imelda Staunton), who is caught in trouble portraying conflicting roles of her life: as a mother, as a wife, and as an abortionist.

It's a hefty film that keeps you comfortable at first, then seeps into your consciousness the harsh realities of post-war London where families are finally together and just enjoying the moments that they have with each other. Vera's family consists of her husband Stan (Phil Davis), a veteran from the first World War, and her two children, Ethel (Alex Kelly) and Sid (Daniel Mays). A newcomer to their residential flats is Reg (Eddie Marsan), a rather morose fellow who is delightfully welcomed into the Drake household and who falls for the Drakes' mousy daughter.

Vera earns her money by cleaning the residences of middle to upper class households, and this is where Leigh introduces an interesting side plot that exposes the class differences with regards to abortion. In one of Vera's cleaning assignments, Susan (Sally Hawkins), the daughter of a top government official, is introduced and is later given a sidestory wherein she is raped by a date and subsequently becomes pregnant. She wants the baby undone, and goes to a psychiatrist, then to a doctor, and pays a handsome sum of money to secretly have her abortion. No further words from her, just a fleeting image on how such need for abortion infects all classes, but the consequences, the dignity lost, the procedure is very much different. Vera's patients range from a "darkie" laborer to middle class women whose pregnancy might cause dishonor. Her procedure is simple: she uses soap which she grates and dissolves in hot water, then she pumps the soapy water to the uterus, and in a matter of days, the patient bleeds again.

But the plot thickens when one of Vera's patients gets hospitalized right after her procedure. She is charged with the felony and the film starts to put on an emotional weight that exceeded my expectations. Just look at the devastating change in Imelda Staunton's face. How the cheerful lines in her forehead and cheeks suddenly droop and reveal an entirely different person. It's a moving performance that shook me, and Leigh knows how to utilize such in the most effective manner. Leigh lights Staunton's face with a dreadful sympathy and each wrinkle, each movement of Staunton's sorrowful blue eyes, each change of her lips' shape is emphasized in heartbreaking degree.

Vera's story is a tragedy that transcends whatever side of the coin you belong to with regards to the issue of abortion. You may label Vera as naive but still criminally liable. You may sympathize with Vera as an unfortunate victim of her own kindness and magnanimity. But you cannot disclaim that Vera is not a good person, and that each heartache, each probable tear, or each wish that Vera be exonerated due to her uninformed sense of community service, is a result of the immeasurable care and compassion that Leigh and Staunton has infused to the character of Vera Drake.