""Another Year,"" the latest film by British writer/director Mike Leigh (""Vera Drake,"" ""Happy-Go-Lucky""), is a two-hour meditation on happiness that will leave you completely depressed. In the world of movies, where hope is in abundance and a second chance is always waiting around the corner, ""Another Year"" argues that sometimes, as one character puts it, ""Life's not always kind, is it?""
It follows a year in the life of aging and content London couple Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) and their less fortunate friends, a cast of characters with each one more miserable than the next. Tom and Gerri garden, cruise in their Volvo station wagon and enjoy each other's company while their friends find themselves trapped in lives they would rather not be a part of.
Ken (Peter Wight), an old friend of the couple, is alone, obese and never without booze, while Ronnie (David Bradley), Tom's brother, is in a near-catatonic state in the aftermath of his wife's death. However, the most tragic of them all is Mary (Lesley Manville), a work friend of Gerri's who never quite remembered to grow up. She spent her prime in a failed marriage and fruitless divorce, and now spends her golden years trying to recapture her youth. Hapless and recklessly optimistic, Mary is like a Bridget Jones aged 20 years who never got her happy ending.
Because of their luck and perhaps a sense of guilt, Tom and Gerri regularly invite these sad souls over for tea and sympathy, but provide shockingly little compassion. Gerri, a therapist, listens to her distraught guests with the same professional detachment she would use when listening to a patient, and Tom makes no effort at hiding his judgment. Although their intentions may be noble, Tom and Gerri seem to lord their successes over their sad companions, showing that being happy and being good are not the same thing.
""Another Year"" received an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay, and for good reason. Developed over the course of several months by Leigh and his cast, the dialogue is natural and unforced, if maybe a little unstructured. That being said, nothing exactly happens in this film. It provides a snapshot of each season, usually in the form of a dinner party. Each scene is long, unwieldy, and entirely under the actors' control, so it is lucky that ""Another Year"" has such a skilled cast. There is not a weak link among them, though Manville is far and away the stand out. As Mary, Manville forces through the heavy make-up, sparkly cougar clothes and flirty winking to show a real sense of despair.
If there is any traceable arc in the film, it is the deterioration of Mary's relationship with Tom and Gerri. From the beginning it is apparent that they have her out of charity, and she looks past their smugness because she has nobody else to talk to. Things begin to collapse when she attempts to pursue their 30-year-old son who at one point refers to her as ""Aunt Mary."" After the family rejects her, Mary shamelessly keeps coming back even though she is not wanted.
With the realization of her dependency on Tom and Gerri despite the fact they could not care less about her, Mary comes to the conclusion that her life has reached a point of no return. It is a deeply affecting moment–– without melodrama or wailing violins––that allows the audience to provide the empathy for Mary that Tom and Gerri never do. Through its acute observations of relationships and the value of happiness, ""Another Year"" shows Leigh's ability as a filmmaker to create something simultaneously somber and human.
