Another Year

[picolas]

damn, mike leigh. what a horrific movie. just wanted to warn you guys. it's basically what i imagine 'Away We Go' was, but staying in the same place. a boring couple who isn't messed up, smiling and nodding at other people who are very obviously messed up and acting out. i feel like leigh has become so consumed with capturing 'reality' that he's decided nothing can be entertaining or really clever ever again. it has to be soooo obvious, dull, painful... what a waste of broadbent.

[Pubrick]

haha, that's what i expected.

he sunk to such shitty depths with Happy Go Lucky that it must have completely derailed his sense of what is good. he is in danger of pulling a david lynch by being somehow ideologically driven to make bad movies for the rest of his career.

at least this can't be worse than happy go lucky.. god....

[pete]

P have you been watching new movies?

[I Love a Magician]

I FOR ONE thought this movie was terrific. your description of the "plot" is correct, but i didn't find any of it dull. maybe obvious and painful, but just because i thought the characters were very well-drawn so their painful moments were painful for me (just as their joyful moments were joyful for me as well).

[Ravi]

I liked this a lot.  I thought it captured well the experiences of a depressed person being on the periphery of happier, more centered people as well as seeing one's friends who are worse off and not really being able to do anything about it.  The "boring couple" reminded me a lot of an older couple I know.  Its a simple film, and there aren't any huge revelations in it, but I just liked spending some time with these characters and relating to them.

[Pubrick]

P have you been watching new movies?

yeah i just don't post about em cos i can't be bothered digging up the thread.

[Alexandro]

picolas, you need to rewatch this.

the only "obvious" thing here is that you couldn't be bothered to question wether there was more than meet the eye than what you were getting.

if you read between the lines this is at least, a very carefully made study on class, education and old age.
the "boring" couple are anything but, they but have fulfilling jobs obviously a consequence of a higher education, have managed to travel around the world, give their son a good upbringing, have time to do things they like and live comfortably.

yet they have these two friends. one of them is clearly a man with skills with a nice job just like them, but who feels should have done better and has a boss half his age, stuff that leads to an unfulfilled personal life. in his conversations with these couple, you can tell they're intellectually on the same level. 20 years ago all three probably had the same possibilities of one day having the type of life that this couple has achieved. yet something (and the film wisely avoids being too specific on this) didn't work out that way, could be personal choices, unexpected turns, or simply bad luck.

on the other hand there's leslie manville's character, who is a secretary and somehow resents it. she is a survivor, an uneducated woman who is clearly depressed, faking excitement all the time, thinking something better is always coming. unable to see when someone likes her for who she is and putting him down. trying to cling to something. that something is her friendship with these guys. they're good listeners to her but as the sane and centered persons they are, draw an invisible line. there's also a bit of smugness in them. their sense of irony reeks of superiority. they are lucky and they know it. i think this makes them kind of unlikeable, which is very interesting to me since everything they have seems so picture perfect.

these also happens with broadbent's brother and his family troubles, and look how they seem worried at the beginning that their son is not finding someone to be with. the son is also interesting because he seems to have it all together yet is worried to be in his 30's alone. the last shot of the film is devastating because nothing really changes except manville's realization that for the moment being, she is just an onlooker to their happiness, whatever she did before took her to this outcome, and she has to deal with it. this shit is painful to watch and meditate because it happens to so many of us, someday we are old and look around to find some of our friends actually made of their lives what they wanted and we didn't.

I think the film is open enough to bear this reading and many others, the characters are so layered that you can sense their knowing each other forever, and it's filled with subtext, you just gotta observe the social context, houses, cars, small talk, behavior. And I completely disagree that any actor is wasted here, these kind of performances are truly rare.