Another Year

Tom and Gerri are a happy couple growing older. Everyone around them is not. Across four seasons the film watches the people who come and go from one kitchen: Gerri's desperate friend Mary, their single son Joe, Tom's collapsed old friend Ken. Mike Leigh directed by his usual method: five months of rehearsal with the actors improvising, and the screenplay written out of that. Principal photography took twelve weeks. Cinematographer Dick Pope used four different film stocks to carry the change of seasons. Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville star. Manville's Mary sits at the centre of every argument about the film, and the performance drew a run of nominations including a BAFTA. It premiered at Cannes. Leigh was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 93 percent, the consensus pointing to the performances and Leigh's trademark feel for the nuances of everyday life. On an 8 million dollar budget it grossed 20 million worldwide. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet, character-driven British films. Who it is not for: anyone hoping to side with the happy couple. As it goes on, Tom and Gerri's kindness starts to resemble something closer to indifference, and the film means it to.