If I had to point to a character in cinema that maybe one day I could, if I were lucky, maybe I could be, it would be Gerri. If I had to point to one that I am almost certainly actually going to turn out to be, it would be Mary.

Gerri is a confident, mature, loving woman who is in a strong relationship, and she is decent and protective of her family and intelligent and sincere. She has her life together, which makes me envy her, I admit, and she has a very real relationship with her husband that is neither picturesque perfection or rocky dysfunction. She is a real person, but that seems redundant to saying she's a…

Another Year is a heartbreaking story of a woman who desperately wants love and companionship as she faces getting older alone. Lesley Manville is outstanding as Mary, the most irritating and energy sucking person you will ever meet, who wears her desperation on her sleeve making it difficult to hate her.

The film centres on four seasons in the life of Gerri and Tom, a happily married couple who are the rock for their depressed friends Mary and Ken. You wonder why they don't seek out happy friends, but perhaps they feel they should give love and support where it is needed, given that they have so much themselves. But when Mary goes too far by being jealous of and…

I can't believe that I haven't watched this in seven years! I joined LB in 2012 and this is *I think* the only Mike Leigh film I haven't logged in my time on here. Madness!

When it comes to relationship goals, it's got to be Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen as Tom and Gerri hasn't it? Mind you, I also believe the same is true for the couple at the heart of Leigh's earlier film, High Hopes, Shirley and Cyril, played by Ruth Sheen and Phil Davis. Being a big fan of that film, it's always a little weird to see Davis pop up here as a friend of the family. Given how well he and Sheen played a couple…

Usually Mike Leigh's slice of life portraits provide some sort of understanding and growth from its characters and a form of closure in its final moments before exiting the lives that we were just cordially invited to witness. Another Year may be his most realistic and sincere slice of life film he has ever made. A year in the lives of a happily married older couple and their dysfunctional friends along the way who always seem to gravitate towards them for relief and comfort. In this year like in anyone's lives time passes, major events occur, people die, some get engaged, babies are born and we all grow a little bit older.

Another Year is highly underrated in Mike Leigh's…

One guarantee in Leigh's dramas is that the audience will receive fully multi-layered characters, as realistic and believable as people are in real life. For bringing such immaculate personifications on screen, you need a deep understanding of human psychology. Leigh manages to show his empathy and comprehension of these authentic human souls through a) extraordinary performances by either a leading role and some secondary characters, or b) great performances by the entire cast. Here, we have the first case, in which Lesley Manville's persona hides under what seems to be a film with an old couple as main characters. Nobody is a main character here if we exclude the fact that we are invited by the film to stay, talk…

A film that is by turns absolutely hilarious, completely excruciating, and overwhelmingly tragic—so in other words, all the emotions you might hope to experience when watching a Mike Leigh effort.

The setup here is fairly straightforward—a year in the life of an older married couple, Tom and Gerri Hepple, who enjoy a comfortable and caring relationship in their cosy home in East London, splitting their free time between tending to their allotment, and receiving their family and friends over for social gatherings. Without perhaps realising it, Tom and Gerri have become rocks to those who have hit rock-bottom; their idyllic home presenting a safe haven for their lost and emotionally unstable acquaintances—Tom’s old chum from his student days, Ken, a…

Another Year made me feel old in a good way and then chipper about its interior design choices. Honestly though this film gets added to my list of films with great interiors im going to steal for my house. I have a deep appreciation for how cleverly the script was written, talking about its subject matter in a way I havent honestly seen done before. Getting older for some is like aging like a fine wine and for others it's like waking up to your best before date tattooed on your forehead. Life's ultimately just to damn short and this film kind of in a way celebrates and lectures its audience on living your best life but with a good…