“Another Year” is another intense character study from Mike Leigh. The new film follows an aging couple throughout a year, containing a slew of scenes from each season and focusing on their interactions with various characters, including their son, co-workers, etc. This is the director’s return to the depressing aspects of life, after flirting with blissful ignorance in “Happy-Go-Lucky.”
Leigh’s infamous approach usually means his work is light on plot, focusing on gently observed character work, and quietly devastating emotions. Leigh’s a real favorite at Cannes, and with critics generally; does “Another Year” continue his streak, or is it the misfire we hoped he’d never encounter?
Guy Lodge who writes for In Contention, says “Leigh’s deceptively harsh but supremely moving film may be a paean of sorts to togetherness, but it’s also an elegy to those we’ve let slide out of view.”Owen Gleiberman, in a very happy state: “And what a randomly moving collection of troubled, romantic, confused, world-weary, stubbornly deluded souls they are! At times, the movie is like the Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’ turned into a startlingly humane comedy.”
Indiewire’s Eric Kohn gives his approval: “Smoothly oscillating from comedy to crisis with an unparalleled eye for naturalism, Leigh once again puts intangible feelings in the spotlight and—using brilliant finesse—makes them funny and profound. “Leslie Felperin, in a glowingly positive review for Variety, writes “Helmer Mike Leigh’s latest contempo, North London-set drama about an interconnected set of family and friends is almost about nothing at all and yet it gently juxtaposes the big issues of everyday life: loneliness and love, selfishness and kindness, birth and death. Arguably Leigh’s tautest, most likable effort since ‘Secrets and Lies.'”
Ray Bennet of THR puts up his hands, saying “It’s a sedate film without drama that festival juries could well fall in love with, but moviegoers might decide that their own brand of misery is quite sufficient, thanks.”Mike D’Angelo of the Onion’s A.V. Club thinks all of Leigh’s work ended up being fruitless, as characters acted too cliched anyway: “The problem, in my admittedly minority opinion, is that Leigh has recently started bending his characters to a predetermined theme, rather than allowing a fairly amorphous (but nonetheless resonant) theme to emerge organically from a collection of vivid characters.”
