Life Is Sweet ***** (1990, Alison Steadman, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Claire Skinner, Jane Horrocks) – Classic Movie Review 1875

If only all British comedy movies could be as brilliant as this! Writer-director Mike Leigh’s 1990 film is extremely sweet indeed – yes and of course just as sour, too. Leigh presents a desperately sad, touching and funny portrait of English suburban family life over a few weeks one summer. Because it’s a Mike Leigh film you just know that title is going to be ironic. But, nevertheless still, this is a hilarious and heart-rending comedy about staying young, growing old and still having dreams, overcoming family conflict and staying in love.

It hardly harms things that there are three British national treasures at work acting in this movie. Alison Steadman and Jim Broadbent are quite wonderful as jokey shopgirl Wendy and senior chef Andy, a working-class north London couple with off-the-wall 22-year-old daughters twin daughters, the tomboyish, droll plumber’s mate Natalie (Claire Skinner) and the bulimic, jobless Nicola (Jane Horrocks).

National treasure number three Timothy Spall also provides a rich crop of laughs as the hyperactive family friend Aubrey, the boss of a new Parisian-themed restaurant called The Regret Rien, whose opening night is a hysterical disaster. His choice of menu hardly helps: Black Pudding and Camembert Soup, Boiled Bacon Comsommé, Saveloy on a Bed of Lychees, Liver in Lager, Pork Cyst, Tripe Soufflé, Kidney Vols-au-vent, Chilled Brains, Prune Quiche, Grilled Trotter with Eggs Over Easy. Despite that, Wendy agrees to waitress at the restaurant, while Andy buys a dilapidated fast-food snack van from a disreputable, drunken acquaintance named Patsy (Stephen Rea).

By the way, Aubrey’s bizarre recipes were devised for laughs by Leigh and Spall one evening. But they were checked with a professional chef, who advised them against any that were technically impossible to prepare. The ones in the film are, as Leigh says, ‘all feasible, gross as it sounds.’

Leigh’s third cinema movie, it was gratifyingly his most commercially successful film at the time and even managed to score a surprise minor hit in America, taking $1.5million, helped by enormous critical acclaim. Roger Ebert said: ‘We are treading close to the stuff of life itself – to the way we all struggle and make do, compromise some of our dreams and insist on the others. Watching this movie made me realize how boring and thin many movies are; how they substitute plots for the fascinations of life.’

It was shot entirely on location in Enfield for the authentic suburban flavour of north London. The family’s house is located at 7 Wolsey Road, Enfield. Leigh uses local people as extras, including people from an Enfield-based dance school for the opening title sequence.

This is the first release by Thin Man Films, which has produced all Leigh’s films since. It was voted British Film of the Year at the London Critics Circle Film Awards in 1992. Though Leigh is credited s writer, the script was developed by him and the cast, employing his established practice of improvising and rehearsing together for several weeks before shooting.

The film also co-stars Moya Brady as the infatuated sous-chef Paula and David Thewliss as Nicola’s lover. Thewlis was disappointed at being given such a small role. Leigh promised him that the next time ‘he’d be given a fair slice of the pie.’ That was the lead character Johnny in Naked.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1875

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