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Dec.5 - Dec.12, 2004 |
An abortionist's bittersweet tale
British filmmaking master Mike Leigh is back with Golden Lion winner Vera Drake
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2004-10-31
One of Britain's true cinematic masters, Mike Leigh has been compared to a painter and novelist for his unique way of "working" with actors.
He typically starts with a theme, not knowing what the script will turn out to be. He recruits a set of character actors (there are always some favourites on hand, including wife Alison Steadman), tells each actor nothing about any of the other characters unless it relates to their character, and does an average of six months of preparation in which every conceivable detail is worked out. To maintain verisimilitude, the actors will do extensive research and sometimes journey out into the real world in character. Then at the rehearsal stage, various improvisations are conducted and the dialogue is worked out in rehearsal under Leigh's tight direction.
Leigh applied his method of "growing" a project with his first feature film, Bleak Moments which won the Grand Prix at Chicago and Locarno Film Festivals in 1971. After developing some successful television series, Leigh would return to making feature-length films in 1988 with the ingenious High Hopes (1988) followed by Life is Sweet and the controversial Naked which won him the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993. His Secrets and Lies walked away with the Palme D'or in 1996 and a Best Actress prize for Brenda Blethyn, who also received an Oscar nomination.
Now Leigh is back with what is possibly his best film. Vera Drake centres on Vera (Imelda Staunton), a cleaning lady who devotes part of her busy day visiting the shut-ins in her poor London neighbourhood. She obviously has a big heart. But as she makes her daily rounds, it becomes clear she does more than make tea and have a quick chat with the sick and elderly. As Vera might put it, she also helps out women in trouble. She does it for nothing, and she does it on the sly, because until 1967, abortion was illegal in Britain. Inevitably, she runs afoul of the law, to the astonishment of her husband (Philip Davis) and grown children (Daniel Mays, Alex Kelly), who didn't know what she'd been up to. Emphasizing class disparities, the film also follows an upper-class girl (Sally Hawkins) who is date-raped but able to pay for an abortion by a well-to-do physician at an exclusive clinic.
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