One of the great accomplishments of Mike Leigh's "Another Year" -- and perhaps an essential reason for its existence -- is to test the audience's judgments and perceptions of the characters. It's rare that you find such a wide range of interpretations about what is actually going on in a movie. Take a look at some of these reactions, from the insightful to the blind. But which, do you think, is which?
"Tom [Jim Broadbent] and Gerri [Ruth Sheen] are cheery, comfortable old lefties who've understood that they're not in a position to change the world anymore, and have gotten to be fine with that -- there's a correlation between this picture and Leigh's 1988 'High Hopes, in which a younger (obviously), punkier, leather-jacketed Sheen played one half of far a more agitated couple in Thatcherite Britain. As for Mary [Leslie Manville], her life is one (largely invented) turmoil after another, and the couple's dealings with her frantic plaints eventually get the viewer to wondering whether these nice, settled folks are really all that nice. Mary is very clearly an alcoholic. But the A-word is never once dropped in the film. And Gerri, who's a therapist herself, never even suggests counseling, or a support group, to Mary until an almost cruel hammer-dropping scene near the film's end. Tom and Gerri are so very polite, so very indulgent, so very correct in all their dealings, all the while dispensing conventional left-liberal wisdom spiked with conventional complacent cynicism whenever contemplating a crisis, be it global or local. But it's clear that all the while, they're stifling their own strong feelings of put-upon-ness and resentment. As much as you like them -- and maybe you won't like them, (that's one of the things about Leigh's films and their characters, they're so unusually and thoroughly textured that they never seem designed to elicit a simple response) -- you have to wonder if they're so besotted by their own comfort and contentment that they can't help but act as passive-aggressive near-monsters to the people they're supposedly close to.
"As Tom and Gerri are laid bare (or are they? That's another thing about Leigh, that he never appears himself to be making any kind of overt judgments on his characters, or even preparing any kind of melodramatic reveal of their hidden natures) the film brims with uncomfortable little touches." -- Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies
"For all its softly meditative tone, accessorized with a gentle acoustic score, 'Another Year' is a stacked deck of a movie that draws a harshly unforgiving, sometimes smug line between boomers who've made good and those who've fallen by the wayside. Leigh aims for compassion, but he's always been a bit of a finger-wagger who shakes out his characters into doers he admires and those who just aren't trying hard enough -- Gerri vs. Mary in 'Another Year,' or, in 'Happy-Go-Lucky,' Sally Hawkins' chipper schoolteacher vs. Eddie Marsan's enraged driving instructor. It's a taxonomy that leaves little breathing space for troubled childhoods, honest mistakes or sheer rotten luck." -- Ella Taylor, NPR.org
"The further the characters are etched, the harder it becomes to figure out with whom Leigh intends us to identify: Tom and Gerri's horrible guests, whom you can't help but pity for their clueless concern for only themselves? Or self-appointed 'Saint Gerri' and her even more self-righteous partner, whose care for friends and family is never anything less than condescending? [...]
"... I haven't seen a film this year that so openly invited me to revile each and every one of its characters -- and I reviewed 'The Human Centipede.'" -- Karina Longworth, LA Weekly
"'Another Year gave me characters I could love, feel uneasy about, identify with or be appalled by. I see a lot of movies where the characters have no personalities, only attributes. I like James Bond, but I ask you: In what way is he human? Every single character in 'Another Year is human, and some of them all too human. I saw it and was enriched." -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
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To respond to what I think you may be getting at, my favourite Leigh movie, by far, is Naked.
Here's one reason why: That final shot, Johnny limping his way on through his miserable life... doing his best to avoid the love of others right down to the bitter end if need be (and, yet, just a few hours before, he had been accepting some tending to... which reveals a degree of hypocrisy in him that we all share) but the point, I think, is this: He is what he is, not necessarily any more right or wrong than any of us, all we can judge about him is his life is built around an essential miserableness, to him a sign of ethics, to others it seems a sick way to live.
Later, in Happy-Go-Lucky, Leigh revisits this sort of character in the enraged driving instructor, Scott. But here's the catch: Scott is a wannabe Johnny (still living with his parents, which Johnny would roll on the floor laughing at) and, in short, Johnny could eat him for breakfast, for only half-believing what he lectures whereas Johnny is more like... 3/4 way or more loyal to his views. Not to say that makes Johnny any more likeable than Scott. Johnny is an extremist, after all. And more than a little disturbed, though I hope that isn't too judgemental for me to say. I don't necessarily mean in it a bad way, just not a good way either.
Maybe the most interesting movie would be a sort of sequel in which Johnny and *almost* disturbingly optimistic Poppy (who seems, to me, Johnny's true opposite/equal in terms of energy) meet each other. Perhaps nothing would happen. Maybe they would recognize what they represent to each other, acknowledge it, and go on their way, like God and The Devil might. (To return to the ever insightful pastiche-mythology of Twin Peaks again: "One and the same.")
But, yeah, that seems to me the biggest misconception with Mike Leigh movies, that he is finger-wagging. If he is, the only thing he could be accused of finger-wagging is finger-wagging. He does his best to just sit back and observe. I find him incredibly perceptive. If I do have one problem with his work it's that it seems a lot more interesting to me when he sets in the world of lower-class or lower-rent characters, if only because the stakes are a little more severe. This may be another reason why I admire Naked best. Also it has the most wowing dialogue in his work. I mean, Johnny really has some zingers and that monologue about the end of the world through bar-coding is one of the eerier apocalypse sermons I've heard.
Ps. Secrets & Lies seems to me his weakest outing, though both Ebert & Emerson think quite the opposite. Maybe it's just me but I'm not quite sure I can pinpoint what the dilemma is in that family? Do they have any? A polite, intelligent daughter they didn't know their Mom had unnerves them that much? The only character in that film who seems to have any real drama in his life is Timothy Spall's photographer having to put up with all these other cry babies. Maybe that's the point or something though because I think that character might be a stand-in for Mike Leigh in a world full of us cry babies...
Pps. It was the same with The Social Network earlier this year. I'm still not sure the Mark Zuckerberg in that movie is a villain. Antagonist, perhaps. Protagonist, perhaps. Cyborg, perhaps. Whatever he is, the movie is less interested in that and more interested in suggesting the implications (ups and downs) of this being the current Master of Our Universe. Some feel frightened, others celebrate it and other still feel uncertain but apprehensive. I think David Fincher and Mike Leigh are similar filmmakers (bare with me here) in that they neither is interested in joining one particular party so much as they aim to portray (in Leigh's case) or leave an impression (in Fincher's case, an incision/scar) and then the audience can feel free to take it wherever they want from there. I suppose that critics would see Fincher as colder, Leigh as warmer, both as hesitant to pledge allegiance to one party but Fincher as the more skeptic filmmaker while Leigh as gives "the benefit of the doubt." I wonder though if that's just because Leigh has happened to make more movies about upbeat characters while Fincher has leaned towards those misanthropes. Each has worked with the other though and so you get two filmmakers whose differences end up marked more by stylistic tendencies than anything else, Mike Leigh as more of a minimalist (except in dialogue) focusing on what's within people's hearts common sense wise while Fincher makes efforts to emphasize formal organization and networks of people mediated through their environment...
Thanks for your observations here. Good point about "The Social Network," another movie in which people have offered diverse interpretations of the role of the main character. (Writer Aaron Sorkin claimed that he saw the movie's Zuckerberg as “an anti-hero for the first hour and 55 minutes of the movie and a tragic hero for the last five" -- which is interesting, but I'm not sure that's the way the movie actually plays.)
Here is the way I see this movie:
Leigh was interested in making a movie featuring happily married characters - but where is the "drama" in that?
In lieu of a traditional narrative framework (which Leigh in general seems be intent on avoiding) - drama instead comes from juxtaposition.
IMHO it's really very simple - the film is a meditation on happiness, where the central happy characters are defined by the unhappy characters in their orbit (Happy Go Lucky is very similar, in this respect).
It is a really interesting 'side effect' of Leigh's eschewing of a traditional narrative structure - which often has an implicit built-in mechanism to TELL the audience what to think and how to react - that viewers (critics included) become confused and react more to the characters as real people (who they'd either like or dislike) than to the overall questions the films raise about the nature of happiness.
My own complaint about the film is that it ends with its focus on Leslie Manville's character - which I personally think adds to the confusion of what I THINK the film is about (the happily married couple) - but who knows, maybe I'm the one missing the point.
I think you're on to something in several ways.
When discussing Happy Go Lucky in interviews, Leigh portrayed his intentions very simply - "I wanted to make a film about a person who is happy." And that twinkle in his eye as see said it was the unmistakable awareness of what an extraordinarily complex and revealing undertaking that is.
In plain sight, he asks, what might a happy life entail? What does it demand of us, and at whose expense are we entitled to it? How do people react to happiness in others? And how does an audience trained on conflict-driven and morally unambiguous narratives reconcile the spectacle of characters who are unremarkable for nearly every quality except their happiness?
After a career of probing his country's miseries and malcontents (sometimes delicately, sometimes brutally, never boringly), Leigh seems to be taking on a much harder and rarer topic now. The politics haven't changed - in maintaining the view that happiness comes out of compassion, empathy, and generosity, his films rebut the subtext of the average film, in which notions such as freedom, romance, and success stand in for fulfillment and joy. So there's certainly a liberal bias at work, but he's exploring it with far too much inquisitiveness to lend itself to a consensus reaction.
Wow! Thanks for that, helps me see his lighter films in a darker perspective and darker in a lighter. I think this is a very big subject indeed, something I think about a lot going between University classes and some of my more working class friends back home who think (with some justification) that most of what i do at school is pretentious and bourgeois...
Like I said in the comment up top, Johnny in Naked is the miserable way he is not just because that's the way his mind thinks but because, in his mind, that's more moral. Poppy isn't exactly just the reverse of that, she's happier yeah, but she's also brave (something Johnny, if he can be called brave, is only so because he's reckless) and Poppy is less moral*izing* than Johnny... I think Poppy comes off as more likeable but that's not necessarily the same thing as respectable. I'd say the personalities of Poppy and Johnny are both respectable in their ways. Though I'm not sure anybody can really defend Johnny's bungled rape to open Naked...
Anyway, I'm guessing Another Year is Leigh's attempt at portraying both sides of "the fence." (Though I'll say no more now about it until I see it.)
I think two other important things in all this is 1) Leigh colour codes his movies to reflect how his characters feel about things in a general way. Happy-Go-Lucky is, for the most part, bright, sunny. Naked is cold, shadowy, blue. Same deal with the music in his films. 2) Leigh, like David Fincher (with the exception of Fight Club, which takes place in the mind of one character), keeps his camera at a distance from his characters (Social Network and Zodiac especially for Fincher)... or they use close-ups in conversations (zeroing in on unselfconscious faces, something the better directors are fascinated by)... but all and all he doesn't get any more involved than he needs to be to see their story. He cares... but he's only a visitor and isn't going to intervene more than he has a right to...
Thank you all for your thoughtful observations. They have enriched my feelings of Leigh's films.
It's ironic that the negative reactions to Tom and Gerri are basically judgements on these characters for judging other characters in the film. Not that it is an inappropriate reaction, but I do wonder if these critics are aware that they are engaging in the exact behavior that they find so appalling when Tom and Gerri do it.
I may sound like Mary over here. But who was 'Johnny', mentioned several times in the original comment by 'MoviesAreMyReligion' ???
I saw this movie today and loved it - for me it is about compassion for others. All of the actors were superb but I would single out Lesley Manville and RUTH SHEEN. I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. I have a Buddhist practice and I found the film very meditative. I found all of the characters fascinating, interesting and - with one exception - "LIKEABLE".
I saw "Biutiful" yesterday and felt that film was also about compassion; it was also about exploiters and the exploited, death, and family. (and it included the two best child actors I have ever ever seen in any movie, and I've seen tens of thousands over the years). Again, having compassion for "unlikeable" people.
I really enjoyed the comments about this film and the rest of Mike Leigh's films - all of his films are interesting, which is more important than if you "like" them.
I hope people take a chance on this movie and stop worrying about "plot" (btw, there is plenty of plot in this movie!).
The sadness on Mary's face - a subdued resignation - coping with the disappointment of loneliness - so beautiful and moving. (Here's hoping Lesley Manville is recognized at the Orange British Academy Awards tomorrow night) This is now my favorite Mike Leigh movie.
I don't get the accusation of finger-wagging. You could say Leigh is also finger-wagging at Tom and Gerri for being resigned to their success and tending their garden instead of helping out at soup kitchens and selling all of their possessions and giving the money to the poor.
I dunno what Leigh's intentions were but I think you're right Jim that the movie is a sort of test for the audience. I'm more like the Mary/Ken characters, I see bits of myself in them, and it's helpful to have that reflection. I've felt like Mary in the last shot, ingratiating myself into the lives of more surface-likable people, and I felt humbled by it. I imagine someone more like the Tom and Gerri characters could learn something about openness and vulnerability from the Mary/Ken characters.
That said I dunno if I would watch the movie again. "DB's" comment above (...David...Bordwell? Well maybe not, but your post was as coherent and insightful as his writing) is accurate but I think even when you chuck established formulas out the window and invent new ones, they can still kinda feel like formulas. The character of Tom's brother felt like he was shoved into the end of the movie to show us that the Mary character isn't always a motor-mouthed narcissist and can tone it down when she's aware that other people are in worse shape than she is. That's an interesting observation, but (to me anyway) it all felt a little too schematic. (My current favourite Mike Leigh film is Topsy-Turvy, where the human observations feel incidental to the putting-on-a-show formula.)
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