Another Year **** (2010, Lesley Manville, Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen) – Classic Movie Review 6102

Another year, another brilliant film from writer-director Mike Leigh. It showcases a heartrending performance from Lesley Manville as Mary, a sad, lonely and unstable middle-aged woman, frozen out of friendship by an apparently caring, but actually smug and chilly English married couple – builder Tom (Jim Broadbent) and psychotherapist Gerri (Ruth Sheen).

The link is that Manville is the secretary in Sheen’s clinic – at the start a colleague and a buddy, then later an embarrassing inconvenience as she becomes more and more desperate and more and more in need of help and friendship. There is nothing worse or more alienating that neediness in a friend, the film seems to suggest. A friend in need is a friend that needs freezing out, apparently. It must be the season of discontent.

Leigh’s screenplay is as impeccable as his direction. And the actors are word perfect in their naturalistic performances – so real you think that they are actually in the same room as you.

Naturally, the plot of the long (130 minutes) and rivetingly engrossing film unravels in four chapters over the four seasons of the year of the title. This a rather artificial, often alienating device but Leigh makes sure it works perfectly here.

Another Year is one of the films of its year, 2010.

Also in the cast are David Bradley, Oliver Maltman, Peter Wight, Phil Davis and Imelda Staunton.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6102

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