In the immediate aftermath of going to see the latest Mike Leigh film, All or Nothing, what I might have had to write in this here review would have been littered with expletives.
However, I'm going to temper my criticism of the film in a small way now since I've read some other reviews of the film and I've realized its possible I just wasn't in the mood for it. I know I shouldn't have let them sway me, but they have helped me put things into perspective a little.
Don't get me wrong. I hated the film; I wanted to leave the cinema after less than an hour. It was way way depressing, which is not a bad thing in itself. I found it dragged along with sparce, monosyllabic dialogue. Very little 'humour' in the bleakness, which is unusual for Leigh. Nothing, aside from the 'event' at the end, happened - again, not a necessity, but...
I think there are a lot of people out there in the 'movie world' that let Mike Leigh get away with certain things because of who he is. I got the feeling that he was saying nothing in this film that isn't said on a regular basis during a half-hour episode of Eastenders. And it just left me feeling depressed, angry and totally underwhelmed. And the 'uplifting', 'life-affirming' (as I've seen it described) ending? All that leapt out at me was that Timothy Spall's character got a wash and shaved his stubble off.
In many ways I resented the portrayal of working class life. I know it *can* be like that, I was brought up in similar circumstances, but I also know far more people battle through the adversity than succumb to it. That might ultimately be what he was trying to say, but I'd long since lost any interest in or empathy to any of the characters in the main family; I honestly didn't give a shit what happened to them.
Okay, so the tempering bit... Maybe I just wasn't prepared to put the effort in when I went to see it on Manchester on Friday night because it was at the end of a hard week. I'd say it's intense and it's bleak. Very very bleak. To be completely fair, maybe I just didn't give it a chance. But then I think, well why *should* I? Surely there must be an element of give and take with a film? Give me a reason why I should be watching and trying to understand, don't just bury me in shit and expect me to climb my own way out of it; I paid to watch this!
And drove about 60 miles to do so, given the paucity of choice at the local multiplexes in Chester and Liverpool. Yes, it's fair to say I expected better from the director who has been described as "Britain's Bergman".
Alan, 5/11/2002