Dark humor helps redeem a brutish life in Mike Leigh's 'All or Nothing'

Friday, November 1, 2002

By WILLIAM ARNOLD
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MOVIE CRITIC

"All or Nothing," Mike Leigh's latest harrowing-but-ultimately-enriching slice of working-class English life, traces, over one eventful weekend, the fortunes of three families that live in a high-rise public housing project in the south of London.

MOVIE REVIEW

ALL OR NOTHING

DIRECTOR: Mike Leigh

CAST: Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Alison Garland

RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes

RATING: R for pervasive language and some sexuality

WHERE: Seven Gables

GRADE: B-

The main family consists of Phil (Timothy Spall), a cab driver, his common-law wife Penny (Lesley Manville) and their two withdrawn, overweight children: Rachel (Alison Garland), who works in a old folk's home, and Rory (James Cordon), who loafs around the flat.

Next door, there's Ron (Paul Jesson), who works as a cab driver with Phil, his attractive but dysfunctionally alcoholic wife Carol (Marion Bailey) and their surly, unemployed daughter Samantha (Sally Hawkins), who dresses like a Hollywood hooker.

And there's Maureen (Ruth Sheen), who works with Penny as a checker at the local Safeway, her belligerently rebellious daughter Donna (Helen Coker), and Donna's snarling boyfriend Jason (Daniel Mays), who seems to have understudied Sid Vicious.

For two-thirds of the film's two-hours-plus running time, these characters -- most of whom seem to have wandered off the pages of "Oliver Twist" -- bait, torment, insult and knock each other about in a nasty free-for-all of verbal and physical abuse.

In the last act, however, a family tragedy strikes Phil and Penny, and Leigh puts a different spin on the drama that takes several of the battered characters toward a new level of understanding about their lives and the invisible ties that bind them as family.

The film is very much in the tradition of the director's "High Hopes," "Life Is Sweet" and "Secrets and Lies," in that it uses improvisational situations and dark humor to tell some life-affirming truths about ordinary people in ordinary but grim situations.

Like those predecessors, "All or Nothing" has some appealing performances (especially from Leigh regulars Spall and Manville), several scenes of absolutely shattering domestic drama and an uncanny aura of gut-wrenching, documentarylike authenticity.

But the humor that made Leigh's other films bearable is much less in evidence, the brutality of the characters almost seems to be out of hand, and this time he doesn't have the power to absolve it or entirely convince us his movie was a trip worth taking.