OK, so this trailer isn’t all that different than the UK version that debuted earlier in the year, but you’d think with the festival season now finished and Oscar talk in full swing that Mike Leigh‘s “Another Year” has hit theaters already. Well, it hasn’t, and we hope this is a reminder that’s it still set to hit theaters and is more than worth seeking out.
Starring Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville, Leigh’s film is a gentle sucker punch to the emotional gut, a slow build tale that chronicles the heart-wrenching despair of the loneliness of middle age life. Much of that feeling is told through Mary, portrayed by Lesley Manville in a performance that deserves a nomination, if not a win. It’s real rawboned stuff, devastating but also infectious and compelling. The character, at least to this writer, is a much more realistic and rounded version of Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins to great acclaim in “Happy-Go-Lucky.” “Another Year” is subtle and superb and another fine notch in Leigh’s accomplished body of work.
“Another Year” opens in limited release on December 31st.
