All or Nothing
After a rather decided departure with his 1999 homage to Gilbert and Sullivan, Topsy-Turvy, Mike Leigh returns to his usual form for All or Nothing, a melancholy look at the day-to-day lives of a dysfunctional lower-middle class British family called the Bassetts. Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville (familiar to fans of Leigh's previous films) star as Phil and Penny, a common-law husband and wife who toil their gloomy days away as a cab-driver and grocery-store cashier, respectively. When the couple come to realize the growing emptiness in their relationship, an unexpected emergency within their family brings them closer together and offers the possibility of reigniting the long-extinguished spark in their marriage. Hoping to repeat the Palm D'or win of Leigh's 1996 film Secrets and Lies, All or Nothing was screened in competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. more..
Director: Mike Leigh
Starring: Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Alison Garland, James Corden, Ruth Sheen
There are moments in All or Nothing of such acute observation that we nod in understanding -- The closing scenes of the movie are just about perfect.
Exquisitely textured film.
All the drinking, arguing and brooding, which in lesser hands might have produced oppressive and unvarying dreariness, somehow adds up to a tableau of extraordinary vividness and variety.
Leigh isn't breaking new ground, but he knows how a daily grind can kill love. Strong stuff.
Leigh doesn't sentimentalize these tragic, dead-end lives but allows his characters to be ugly and stupid, to make horrendous mistakes. Sometimes they're laughable, and yet there's never the sense that Leigh is mocking them.
Best Actor
British Independent Film Awards (2002)
Mike Leigh
Cannes Film Festival (2002)
Best Feature
Chicago International Film Festival (2002)
Best Director
European Film Awards (2002)
Best Technical/Artistic Achievement
Evening Standard British Film Awards (2003)
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