Gerri (Ruth Sheen) and Tom (Jim Broadbent) are the nexus of a group of people, all attracted to this older couple because of their calm, compassion and common sense. This is truly a charmed couple. Gerri is a medical counselor who discusses emotional problems with patients. Tom is a soil engineer helping in the construction of underground water conduits which secure safe drinking water and waste disposal for neighborhoods. So, they have both developed careers which help humanity. Their home fringes the countryside and is filled with plants and flowers. They even have a plot in a community garden and regularly work with the earth and eat their own fruits and veggies. Getting the message? These people are grounded! Even their son (Oliver Maltman) is a social worker who falls in love with a nurse. Golly, what a blessed family.
Now, if you've ever read Kurt Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle' you will be familiar with the religion he created called Bokononism. In it, groups of people form true connections which he calls a karass like spokes of a wheel, and the hub of the wheel, the wampeter, is the central thing that holds them together. Things like religion, nationality, political parties are just granfaloons or false and unimportant associations. The wampeter is what actually holds people together in groups even if they feel unrelated to the other members. While watching 'Another Year,' I kept thinking that the one central thing that is a commonality to all the other characters in the film is their attraction to and even need for Gerri and Tom; so, in a sense, this couple who might also be their own duprass, are the wampeter of the karass. Got it? Watching Tom and Gerri in their idyllic lives might be dull except for their friends and family who bring their emotional pain and suffering into the equation.
These friends each relate an aspect of the human condition, and who better to write/direct such humanistic, slice of life stories of the middle and working class British than Mike Leigh? His filmography includes such examples of genre as 1988's 'High Hopes,' 1996's 'Secrets and Lies,' and most recently 2008's 'Happy-Go-Lucky'. His method is to write a bare bones script and improv with his gifted actors in rehearsal till the full bodied script is perfected. Then shoot. 'Another Year' seems a bit more sober and less dramatic, but Leigh's still got that naturalist and relatable touch that makes associations and empathy with all his characters and their situations easy and authentic.
Another Year
Director/Writer: Mike Leigh
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville, Peter Wight, Oliver Maltman, David Bradley, Karina Fernandez, Martin Savage
Time: 129 min
Opens January 14 at the Sundance Kabuki and Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco
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