Ready to Rent Ready to Rent (April 01, 2005)

Vera Drake

Warner Home Video DVD 2 hrs 5 mins Director: Mike Leigh

Director Mike Leigh's "Vera Drake" pulls a doublecross on its audience and almost succeeds in being a brilliant film if it weren't for its wandering nature. It is a tough film, a violent film - tough because of its touchy subject matter and violent because of the emotions it evokes. It starts off as one of those educational made-for-TV movies, whose seedling message is dubiously cloaked in the thin ramblings of a plot line. But it ends up as a family tragedy, with "the system" to blame. It also features some of the most honest characterizations of 2004, from Imelda Staunton's Academy Award nominated title role to Peter Wight's Inspector Webster, who quietly steals every scene he is in. "Vera Drake" is also somewhat of a treat for the audience because we get to see a unique director tweaking material that belongs in a somber Hitchcock film but without the shameless exhibition.

Vera Drake is a cherub faced middle-aged housewife in a post WWII rationing England whose constant good nature allows her to get odd jobs around the neighborhood. Her family is one of endearing domesticity. Her husband Stan is genuinely loving; her son Sid is a portrait of male early-20s rambunctiousness; and daughter Ethyl is a likeness of the painfully shy spinster. Their family is presented not as stereotypically sentimental but as familiar, with connections that ring true. However, Vera also is given side work by a dubious friend, that of "helping" girls in need, and her family is painfully unaware of this.

This "help" is performing abortions for the poor and unwanted women of the streets. What works for and against "Vera Drake" is the way this struggle is presented, with the straightforward reasoning of basic sociology as our guide. Vera feels she is helping those who cannot afford to help themselves; the police and courts and doctors see the affects of these base procedures and the reasoning spins round and round. Director Mike Leigh knows to step back and let the story line work the issue out - there is no big scene with summation by Vera or one of the characters at the end, or any statistical information given after the last fadeout. There is only our relationships and experiences with the characters, and we are left with only our frustrations.

What works foremost for "Vera Drake" is its honesty. Director Leigh's method of writing a screenplay is to give a vague outline for his actors and let them develop their characters over months of rehearsals: The film is merely the distillation of the process. The cinematography by Leigh's longtime collaborator Dick Pope is some of the most haunting he has created. London is a series of yellow, gray and blue smears with only the indoors to provide warmth, especially when the family is present. What is finally tragic is not Vera's fate but that of her family. The last shot of them around the dinner table without their mother is one of absolute heartbreak. -Joe Ramirez

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