Review: Another Year

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Another Year

I'm a longtime fan of director Mike Leigh. From Naked to Happy-Go-Lucky, his films are completely naturalistic, populated with entirely human characters and emotionally powerful.

That said, I'm not quite a fan of Leigh's latest work, Another Year. Yes, it's the sort of high-quality cinema we expect from Leigh, a thoughtful and thoroughly believable collection of character studies with plenty to say about how we view our lives, ourselves and each other. But while Another Year is unquestionably well made, it's so relentlessly drab and dour that I just couldn't bring myself to like it.

The movie centers on Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen), middle-aged Londoners who have enjoyed many years of marital bliss, personal fulfillment and professional success. However, most of their family and friends are anything but content with their lives. From their lonely son, Joe (Oliver Maltman), to their lonelier, hard-drinking friend Mary (Lesley Manville), Tom and Gerri find themselves surrounded by unhappiness, disappointment and spiritual ennui.

Another Year's storyline is minimal, with little appreciable plot or action. As the title implies, the film chronicles a year in the lives of its characters, developing them through endless (albeit never boring) conversations. The film is in four parts, one for each season. It opens in the spring, when Tom and Gerri entertain Mary, who drunkenly laments her disastrous love life. They also enjoy a visit from Joe, who is happy with his legal career but wishes he could find a wife, like most of his friends have.

In the summer, Tom's boyhood friend Ken (Peter Wight) visits Tom and Gerri for a weekend. Gregarious, boozy and nearing retirement, Ken is also desperately unhappy with his lot in life; his pointless and ultimately disastrous flirting with Mary at a barbecue only makes matters worse. Meanwhile, Mary flirts just as pointlessly with the much younger Joe.

The dreary parade continues in a similar vein through the fall, although there is a glimmer of genuine happiness when Joe brings home his cheerful new girlfriend, Katie (Karina Fernandez). Tom and Gerri like her immediately and seem relieved that their son has found a soulmate. But Mary is jealous of Katie because she's found Tom, and even more so because she's found happiness. Mary's rude, immature behavior toward Katie embarrasses everyone.

Sadly, winter brings a death in the family. The wife of Tom's elder brother, Ronnie (David Bradley), dies suddenly, and at her funeral we meet Ronnie's angry, abusive and mostly estranged son, Carl (Martin Savage). The nature of Carl's hostility isn't clear; what is clear is that he blames his parents for his world of hurt, and his belligerence toward Ronnie drives away the mourners at Ronnie's house after the funeral. And so this glum study of human failings continues until the film's bittersweet end.

Another Year's title and seasonal structure point to one source of its characters' overwhelming unhappiness: They all feel that time is running out on them. Many scenes take place in Tom and Gerri's allotment, or share of a community garden. The gardening theme is, of course, an obvious metaphor for the passage of time, of nature's cycle of birth, life, death and renewal. Yes, it's another year, but while the garden grows and blooms, the characters' lives do not. The flowers in Tom and Gerri's allotment may brighten the film's othewise drab visuals, but there is little to brighten Ken's self image or Mary's hopes of having a happy romance.

On the other hand, there is a sense of renewal in Joe and Katie's happy new relationship, a bright spot among so much despair. While time is not on the side of the other characters, it seems to be working in Joe and Katie's favor. Their smiling, upbeat, youthful presence lends Another Year a desperately needed sense of optimism, and the film could stand more of it.

If my synopsis sounds dreadful, it's because Another Year is mostly dreadful, at least in its tone and worldview. But again, the film deserves great respect for its astute observations about human behavior and its flawlessly drawn, unsettlingly real characters. From the self-assured, unflappable Tom to the profoundly insecure Mary to the frighteningly malevolent Carl, every character in Another Year is someone we know all too well and sometimes wish we didn't.

The film's veteran cast is universally excellent, and their engaging performances save what could have been an unwatchable movie. The best of the lot is Wight's slovenly, socially inept Ken, a character so fully realized that we can practically smell the cigarettes and beer on his breath. While Ken is probably the last person you'd want at your party, Wight makes him sympathetic; you would invite him to the party anyway, because it's probably the only social opportunity he's had in months. Manville is also a standout as Mary, the endearingly loopy but deeply troubled friend we all have. We roll our eyes at Mary's sometimes tenuous acquaintance with reality -- but when she says nothing and looks at us with pleading eyes, we really feel her pain.

Another Year is one of those unnervingly honest, artfully crafted films I would enthusiastically recommend if it weren't such a downer. Of course, I'm the last film viewer to demand a sunny outlook or a happy ending. In fact, I usually find happy endings to be artificial and slightly insulting, as if the filmmaker thinks I'm not sophisticated enough to appreciate a film that ends unhappily (or worse, ambiguously). But really now, Mr. Leigh: You could have made Another Year much more entertaining -- and just as real -- by making it slightly less painful to watch. After all, there's plenty of pain in real life -- but sometimes another year does bring happiness.