In Contention

Tag: All or Nothing

  • Leigh and Manville on their 30-year collaboration

    As you probably know, I’m rooting hard for seasoned character actress Lesley Manville to get her first Oscar nod this year for Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” — and the quality of her piercing tragicomic performance isn’t the only reason.

    For a director renowned for his close relationship with a regular, rotating crew of actors, the Academy’s response to his films thus far hasn’t really reflected that loyalty. Only three thesps (all women) have been Oscar-nominated for their work in a Leigh film — a number far smaller than it should be — and all of them, oddly enough, were tapped for their first collaboration with the director. (Moreover, only one of them has since returned to Leigh: that’d be “Vera Drake” lead Imelda Staunton, who has a striking cameo in his latest.)

    Should Lesley Manville manage a nomination, then, she’ll be the first of Leigh’s regular posse to be thus rewarded. Indeed, Manville is Leigh’s longest-serving ally. She first collaborated with the director on a 1979 radio play before going on to star in six of his feature films, climaxing with a stunning lead turn in 2002’s “All or Nothing” that was shamefully ignored by awards bodies on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s sweet to see the middle-aged actress  finally having her moment in the sun with “Another Year” — she’s earned it.

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  • INTERVIEW: Sally Hawkins

    Sally Hawkins“We didn’t necessarily set out to create someone as perpetually sunny as Poppy,” says Sally Hawkins of her radiant performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which is currently making waves in the awards race. “But Mike was very dismissive of doing anything maudlin or moody with this project. So the optimism came early on for her. It’s like trying on different skins. And this skin just fit.”

    Spoken in a breezy, unassuming tone, it strikes me as a statement — equal parts pragmatic and eccentric — that could as easily have some from the mouth of Poppy herself, the cheery North London schoolteacher who forms the delightful center of Leigh’s latest perceptive study of British social mores.

    Indeed, when I first encounter Hawkins in the top-floor café of a West End bookshop, dressed in a somewhat Poppy-esque ensemble of emerald-green cardigan and flowing tie-dye skirt, it’s difficult not to be reminded at least a little of her character. Hawkins is certainly calmer and a little softer in person, but her easy-flowing conversation, accompanied by increasingly wild hand gestures, reveals something akin to Poppy’s humor and generosity of spirit.

    “I’m nothing like as extroverted as she is,” she says, smiling broadly.  “But how many people are?  If anyone says they see even a little of me in Poppy, or vice versa, I take that as the hugest compliment, because she just has life worked out. It’s not as if she’s negating that it’s hard. She just finds a way to deal with it, and finds a way to flow with people. She’s an extraordinary person. I think I learned a lot from her.”

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  • ‘Happy’ season for Miramax?

    I’ve been meaning to write about Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” ever since I saw it some three weeks ago, but I haven’t found a window until now. I’m off to Berlin on the weekend and I’d really like to get this off my plate before I leave, so amid all the packing, I thought I’d hammer out some brief thoughts.

    I’m never really let down by a Leigh film. Even his lesser efforts seem to exist on some simple but probing level that makes argument a fool’s errand. More often than not, his work sparks appreciation during the awards season, and he even managed a second Best Director nomination for “Vera Drake” in 2004, which surprised more than a few people.

    “All or Nothing” was one of my absolute favorite gems of 2002, yet it was ignored completely, while going back to the epic year in cinema that was 1999, we find perhaps Leigh’s most ambitious effort in “Topsy-Turvy.” Then, of course, there was “Secrets & Lies,” which captured the hearts of many in an Oscar year dominated by independent film.

    Leigh’s pre-“Secrets & Lies” work is a slightly different breed, but still fundamentally the work of the same artist and, at times, the same vision of the world. And he has come back to it with “Happy-Go-Lucky,” the shrewd observation of which Guy made in his April review of the film.

    Something feels even more off-the-cuff about “Happy” than Leigh’s recent films. There is an even greater sense of spontaneity and improvisation lurking between the frames that can be both exciting and off-putting, but the purpose is served throughout: bringing the audience into the devil may care world of a woman hell-bent on saving the drama for your mama.

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