OVP: Another Year (2010)

Film: Another Year (2010)
Stars: Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville, Oliver Maltman, Peter Wight, Imelda Staunton
Director: Mike Leigh
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Approaching the films of Mike Leigh is always something that I feel I need to do so with caution.  Unlike many other filmmakers, I'm never quite sure what I'll be encountering, and while I love the excitement of not knowing what is next, I also want to be emotionally prepared-am I going to be dealing with a traditional despair or joyous happiness?  Am I going to see a lot of people that will improve with their film, or a group that will largely stay staid throughout the film?  I know I'm going to be mesmerized and get brilliance, but in what package?  It's a bit like a Christmas present that I get to open every couple of years at the cinema or from my Netflix envelopes, and that is exactly how I feel about Another Year, his 2010 triumph and the latest film from this marvelous auteur.

(Spoilers to come) Another Year starts deceptively, with us focusing on the sleeping troubles of a woman named Janet (played marvelously by Imelda Staunton, one of many Leigh regulars that litters this film).  She is first seen by a doctor, and then by a psychiatrist, and we see a woman that is bitter, lonely, and hates what life has dealt her.  She is married, but clearly not happily, and her children are no comfort to her.  We see her lash out at her shrink Gerri (Sheen), and then Leigh pulls the first of several fast ones on us as an audience.  For once the session is over, we follow not the Oscar-nominated Staunton, but instead Sheen (another treasured British character actress), and though we remember her well throughout the rest of the movie, we do not encounter her again, nor is she even mentioned after her two key scenes.  It's an interesting choice, to cut arguably the most well-known star in the film (give or take Jim Broadbent), and instead focus on the therapist.  I know getting comments at the blog is sometimes a difficult task, but I'd really encourage anyone who reads this review to respond, as I'd love to know what your thoughts are on the "why" here.

Perhaps it's because Gerri, and her husband Tom (Broadbent, and yes, the name pairing is noted in the film) are so used to having miserable people in their lives.  They have a son (Maltman) who seems unhappy, and is not married, a friend named Ken (Wight) who is overweight and slowly realizes that his life has past him by and he is no longer able to enjoy the things he once did, and we finally have Mary (Lesley Manville, who missed an Oscar nomination due to category confusion, which is a shame since she should have ousted someone from either lineup with her bravura work), who is the third lead in the film along with Sheen and Broadbent.  Because of the unconventional structure of the film, we don't actually know that Mary is going to be our primary protagonist until the film has ended-Tom and Gerri are onscreen far more often, and the stories of Ken and Tom's brother take up a solid portion of the film, but it's Mary that we latch onto throughout the film, and the film, as it progresses, becomes largely Mary's story.

I suppose that means that it's important for us to introduce Mary, a secretary who is single, unlucky in love and money, and relies on Tom and Gerri far more for her happiness than they do on her.  It's difficult not to compare the two and call Gerri the total winner-she has a successful career, a lovely home, a son and husband who clearly adore her, and a beautiful coop garden that fills her leisure time.  Her life is not grand and opulent, but it is wonderfully happy and content and filled with meaning and love.  Tom and Gerri's life is, if we truly admit it to ourselves, what we're all really hoping for-a partnership with someone we love, a life of comfort with little worry, and filled with meaning and goals that are consistently achieved.

Mary, on the other hand, is single, and increasingly desperate due to the failures she must endure day after day.  There are multiple recurring issues in the films, including Mary's constant troubles with her car, an investment she made with pride in the first chapter of the film (the film is divided into four chapters, one for each season), and by the fourth chapter she has sold it for a pittance and is once again forced to ride the tubes to get to her friends' house.  Mary also has a slight crush on Tom and Gerri's son, Joe, which grows throughout the film, to the point that she behaves horribly to Joe's girlfriend when she pops up in the autumn chapter of the movie, which causes a huge rift in her friendship with Tom and Gerri.

One of the genius moments in Leigh's film is a result of this.  In the winter chapter, after at least twenty Mary-free minutes where Tom comforts his brother after the death of his wife, we once again encounter Mary, first without Tom and Gerri (where she is simply chatting and confessing her life's problems to Tom's brother, as is her norm), and then as Tom and Gerri return and look disgusted that Mary has shown up uninvited, and on the night where their son and his girlfriend will be showing up, their happy relationship blossoming into something similar to that enjoyed by Tom and Gerri.  The genius is when, after watching Mary pour her heart out to Gerri and confess that her friendship means everything to her, we see Gerri react to her as if she's reacting to Janet in the opening scenes-with a sympathetic distance.  While Tom and Gerri's friendship with Mary has meant everything to Mary, it's little but a speck in the life of Gerri, who has largely moved on from their friendship while Mary has clearly been tortured by their fracture for months.  Gerri tolerates Mary for the remainder of the night, but instead of doting on her like she has in the past, she instead treats her as invisible, and the film's final, daunting shot, is of the happy dinner companions, chatting and largely ignoring Mary, who is at the table, devastated both because she will never have this happiness, and because she knows that she is no longer welcome in the one world that gave her any sense of self-worth.

Leigh's use of loneliness in this way is something few directors would dare to do, because it truly is difficult to watch onscreen.  Most films would have given some sort of bone to Mary, a suitor or a new job or something, but Leigh instead shows the shards of her only happiness, her relationship with Tom, Gerri, and Joe, snatched away in the film's final scenes.  It's a gutsy move, primarily because of its honesty.  We all know Mary's in real life-the people who are at the periphery of our lives, that we remember when it's convenient or out of obligation, and that we may not realize are counting on us far more than we know, or care to know.  Perhaps some of us are Mary's.  It's a stunning sort of message to point out the obvious-some people don't get happy endings, and they have to watch and wonder why other people do.  Some get love and success and joy, and some are so unlucky.  It's a message that we all must face as truth, even if we are constantly comforting the Mary's in our lives (or ourselves) that happiness is just around the corner.