ANOTHER YEAR written and directed by Mike Leigh, with Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville and Ruth Sheen. A Mongrel Media release. 130 minutes. Opens Friday (January 14). For venues, trailers, and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNN
The kind of film that makes you want to go out and hug old people, Mike Leigh’s latest is melancholic and affectionate.
Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) are that rare happy couple in their twilight years who routinely invite less fortunate friends and family over for dinner, tea and occasionally a lot of wine. If the film feels unhurried, plotless and schematic, well, that’s kind of the point.
During these naturalistic and rudimentary proceedings, there are dramatic moments when minor discomforts and awkwardness, and even manifestations of class consciousness, threaten the couple’s strictly sustained pleasantness. As the conflicted and notably less educated friend who might make the wheels fall off life’s cycle, Lesley Manville delivers an awards-calibre performance masking pain and vulnerability with drunken eccentricity.
