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Vera-similitude
"Vera Drake" continues Mike Leigh's chronicles of the British working class, this time with an added cautionary element from the time before abortion was legal.
By DAVID N. BUTTERWORTH
Offoffoff.com
For anyone who, like me, grew up in the UK, there's a charming
nostalgia to be found in a new Mike Leigh movie. Leigh's observational
"kitchen sink dramas" (which include "Secrets & Lies," "Career Girls,"
and "Life is Sweet") dramatize everyday Englanders going about their
daily lives with documentary-like precision — the director often allows
his actors to improvise their lines, thus enhancing the overall
aesthetic. Audience members not hailing from those fair shores are
prone to witness odd, eccentric, and altogether alien-like beings
congregated in damp flats, speaking in a completely foreign tongue, and
washing away their worries with veritable gallons of tea.
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| | | VERA DRAKE | Written and directed by: Mike Leigh.
Cast: Imelda Staunton, Richard Graham, Eddie Marsan, Anna Keaveney, Alex Kelly, Daniel Mays, Philip Davis, Lesley Manville, Sally Hawkins, Simon Chandler, Sam Troughton, Marion Bailey, Sandra Voe, Chris O'Dowd, Adrian Scarborough, Heather Craney.
Cinematography: Dick Pope.
Edited by: Jim Clark.
Related links: Official site | All of David N. Butterworth's reviews at Rotten Tomatoes | | RELATED ARTICLES |
NY Film Festival 2004
í¡‚ Overview
í¡‚ Official site
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Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporaneo
(Mexico City)
• Official site
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In his latest film, "Vera Drake," writer/director Leigh captures
the milieu of working-class London circa 1950 with bleak, harrowing
realism. Vera is the center of this tale — whether it's a true story or
not seems barely relevant; one can safely assume a patchwork of like
individuals and situations — and as the eponymous Vera Imelda Staunton
gives a centered, moreover phenomenal performance.
"Wife. Mother. Criminal." The film's economic tagline reflects
its screenplay's startling efficiency. And while I do the film a
disservice to speak specifically of Vera Drake's crime, for the purpose
of this review I must. Vera, loving wife to auto mechanic Stan (Phil
Harris) and doting mother to tailor's assistant Sid (Daniel Mays) and
the homely Ethel (Alex Kelly), wears many hats. In addition to the
tried and true role of family matriarch, selflessly willing to forever
put the kettle on or whip up a nice spread at the drop of one of those
hats, Vera works as a cleaning lady in the homes of the filthy rich,
labors in a factory testing light bulbs, looks in on the elderly and
the infirm (including her own frail, bedridden mother), and performs
D.I.Y. abortions for troubled young girls in the unforgiving
neighborhoods of London N1.
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As we come to learn in the film's heartbreaking conclusion, Vera
has been performing this service gratis for over 20 years now, sluicing
up these poor unfortunates' insides with a soapy disinfectant solution
in order to bring about the bleeding. She does this because the young
women need her help. She does it out of kindness and compassion. And
she goes about this dirty business the same way she goes about all her
business: with an endlessly cheery disposition. "Tomorrow you'll be
right as rain, love," she tells them comfortingly after concluding the
intrusive procedure. But when one girl winds up in the hospital and
nearly dies, Vera is arrested and charged under the "Offences Against
the Person Act of 1861" for illegally inducing miscarriages.
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Soon after, the film just ends, with Vera's devastated family
sitting around the familiar tea table minus the woman from whom they've
all drawn so much strength. The tragic beauty of this finale is that
Leigh chooses not to add any kind of a postscript; there is no
preaching, no politicizing, no Roe vs. Wade sidebars or rabid
proselytizing. It's just a family torn apart by the removal of one so
special, so vital from their midst.
Leigh's "Vera Drake" is a quiet, law-abiding motion picture that
sets no precedents and forces us to draw our own conclusions. And in
Imelda Staunton it features one of the most impressive performances of
the year.
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NOVEMBER 3, 2004
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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