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Another Year Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some language) Genre: Drama Theater release: January 21, 2011 by Sony Pictures Classics Directed by: Mike Leigh Runtime: 2 hours 9 minutes Cast: Jim Broadbent (Tom), Ruth Sheen (Gerri), Lesley Manville (Mary), Saoirse Ronan (Irena), Oliver Maltman (Joe), Peter Wight (Ken), Imelda Staunton (Janet). Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Befitting its title, Another Year covers the span of a single year. Divided into four seasonal segments—spring, summer, autumn & winter—the film follows the quiet passage of time in the lives of Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen), happily married British 60-somethings with stable jobs, a warm home, and plenty of love for each other and those around them. That may sound like an esoteric bore to some; but this is no "lifestyles of the mild-mannered and nearly retired" snooze. Rather, it's a deeply observant, humane, funny, and emotional study in the elusive and preciousness of joy.

Directed by acclaimed British filmmaker Mike Leigh, Another Year opens with a striking scene of Gerri, a therapist, counseling a depressed woman (Imelda Staunton) who rates her happiness a "one" on a scale of 1-10. Gerri does what she can to advise the woman, who is about her own age. But ultimately Gerri can only do so much; the impenetrable sadness of the woman will not break in one session. Gerri goes home to her pleasant husband Tom and they enjoy dinner and wine together, as they do most nights. They are happy and joy-filled, even while many of those around them—co-workers, patients, family members—are not. Rather than being dragged down by the sometimes frustrating and dreary company that surrounds them, Tom and Gerri embody a calm-in-the-storm patience and empathy, walking alongside the suffering, trying to make them better.

Jim Broadbent as Tom, Ruth Sheen as Gerri

Tom and Gerri—along with their generally well-adjusted adult son (Oliver Maltman) and his cheerful girlfriend—are the heart and soul of this film, and theirs is the story this year-long narrative recounts. But in many ways Another Year is a study of the periphery characters—those marginal figures struggling with loneliness and depression for whom Tom and Gerri are a rare bright spot of joy and unconditional love. There's Tom's old friend Ken (Peter Wight), an overweight, slovenly alcoholic; Tom's brother Ronnie (David Bradley), a shellshocked widower estranged from his son; and Gerri's longtime co-worker Mary, an outgoing but heartbreakingly insecure and clingy woman with a penchant for drinking too much wine and outstaying her welcome. Played with a tragic rawness and go-for-broke honesty by the immensely expressive Lesley Manville, Mary is sort of the inverse of Poppy, the joyous Sally Hawkins character who embodied the title of Leigh's previous film, Happy-Go-Lucky.

As in Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh seems interested in exploring the concept of happiness in Another Year. Why are some people happy and others not? Is it because, or in spite of, the hard knock circumstances life deals us?

Leigh, known for his social-realist explorations of working class struggles (in films like Naked, Secrets & Lies, and Vera Drake), is keenly perceptive of the inequalities and structural injustices that plague contemporary England, as they do everywhere else. But in Another Year he seems less preoccupied with external constraints and social problems and more interested in the internal emotions and choices we make to better the condition of our souls. Though Leigh doesn't completely write off the possibility that happiness has a material component (Mary suggests on several occasions that her lack of ability to afford a vacation only worsens her depression), he seems more adamant that happiness is more intimately correlated with the relative health of our relationships—specifically how selfless, giving, and grace-filled they are.

Lesley Manville as Mary

Still, there is a sense in which Another Year views the dispensation of happiness as a sort of luck-of-the-draw lottery. In the same way that some people are born into poverty, poor education, and limited opportunities for economic advancement, so too are some people born into situations (bad families, lacking social skills, physical or emotional hardships) where the cards of happiness seem to be stacked against them. Is there anything society, or individuals, can do to address this inequality?

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