Another Year PosterANOTHER YEAR

Monday, March 28

Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen, Peter Wight
Run Time: 129 minutes
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 2010
Language: English
Rating: PG (Coarse language)

In his follow-up to the Film Circuit hit Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh - Britain's master of cinematic improvisation – returns with Another Year, a Special Presentation at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival ®.

Featuring top-notch ensemble acting, subtly defined characters and a resonant script, this acutely observed drama follows a year in the life of a contented, good-hearted middle-class couple in their early sixties and the friends and family who cross their path. Presented at seasonal intervals making up the year of the title, the action is set largely in the suburban London home of Gerri (Ruth Sheen,Vera Drake, Vanity Fair) and her husband Tom (Jim Broadbent, The Damned United, The Young Victoria). They seem to have the perfect, mutually supportive marriage. He is an engineering geologist and she works as a medical counselor. They tend their vegetable garden, care about the environment and cook meals for family and friends. But their cozy situation belies that of those around them. Tom's boyhood friend Ken (Peter Wight, Babel, Pride & Prejudice) is an overweight alcoholic who hates his job and his life; Ronnie (David Bradley, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), Tom's brother, is a taciturn, lost figure; and Mary (Lesley Manville, Vera Drake), Gerri's work colleague, is a glass-half-full depressive living a life of quiet desperation.

Though the story is told through the lives of Gerri and Tom, Leigh's main interest is Mary. Played with absolute perfection by frequent Leigh collaborator Manville, Mary is fragile, lonely and desperate for a relationship. She harbors an unrealistic attraction to Tom and Gerri's son Joe (Oliver Maltman, Happy-Go-Lucky) and can't stand Ken, whose friendly advances she rebuffs, seeing in him a mirror of her own desperation. As Gerri and Tom, Broadbent and Sheen effortlessly portray the happy couple they're meant to be, with Sheen's performance standing out as the warm, emotional heart of the film. An eloquent story of narrowing options and fading hopes in life's later years, Another Year addresses themes of class, family and depression with humour and humanity.

Loaded with excellent dialogue, inviting characters and a director with a knack of making the ordinary extraordinary, Another Year beautifully speaks to the old proverb "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

"A mature, wise reflection on life's joys and sorrows, Another Year can take its place beside the very best films in Mike Leigh's career."
– David Gritten, Daily Telegraph

Reviews: www.rottentomatoes.com/m/another_year_2010

Official Site: www.sonyclassics.com/anotheryear

Another Year

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