Strong characterisation in ‘Another Year’

Director: Mike Leigh

Cast: Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Oliver Maltman, Leslie Manville

Cert: 12

Nobody makes films quite like the magnificent Leigh, turning the ordinary into extra-ordinary in characters and events … even around a framework that looks like it has disposed of a plotline.

Here he brings us Tom (Broadbent) and Gerri (Sheen), a happily long-married couple whose circle of friends come with deep-rooted unhappiness, dysfunction and troubles, none more so than on-the-surface bubbly Mary (a quite wonderful performance from Manville).

In a story about relationships we watch the characters over the course of a year and watch how Tom and Gerri deal with their friends.

This being a Leigh film there is a lot of dialogue – at times perhaps too much – but it is in the strength of the realisation of the different characters that the film succeeds.

Star rating: 4/5