My first exposure to this film was a cable-television broadcast in the early 1990s. While I was initially intrigued with what I saw, I can’t remember if I actually watched the entire film. In all likelihood I caught this broadcast at the sudden end to a frantic session of channel surfing. I must admit that at times television has been an important resource for broadening my cinematic tastes and knowledge, even though the medium does suffer from some disadvantages in this aim. First, films have to navigate certain cultural and censorship filters in order to appear on TV, and even then they are probably being broadcast as part of a corporate marketing strategy. TV is also filled to the brim with countless channels and operates on a schedule of its own choosing, rendering the practice of finding a film that you don’t yet know that you like until you start watching it, as both limited and impossible to foresee. And that’s to say nothing about the presence of pure chance in such a process. With channel surfing, it is the brief glimpses of a film that have to grab your attention. It requires fortuitous timing to work.
Had I more foresight as a teenager, I would have popped in a blank VHS cassette tape and made a copy of the film when it aired, but sadly I didn’t. A VHS copy of the film was still available in the early 1990s after being released by Republic Pictures Home Video during their brief, late 20th century resuscitation from dormancy. Prior to that the film had a decent theatrical run in the US which lasted for roughly 6 months. The film’s director, Mike Leigh, has had a very successful film career, which I suspect was the primary reason behind the film’s DVD release in the US by the Criterion Collection in 2013. Still this remains one of Leigh’s less heralded titles and perhaps as a result it wasn’t nearly as accessible as I had hoped. According to worldcat.org only 1 public library within a 20 mile radius of where I live held a DVD copy of this. Strangely, two other public libraries within a 40 mile radius were still holding on to their VHS copies for reasons I can not fathom. One can also stream this on the Criterion Channel, but nonetheless I ended up getting a DVD copy from Facets.
There were times during this movie, where I strangely felt as if I was watching a Hal Hartley film. And honestly it embodied many of Hartley’s most identifiable traits; most notably its meek, unassuming and subdued tone that was perfectly suited for an exploratory look into the seemingly insignificant lives of the working class. Yet in spite of the middle-class milieu that it wonderfully crafted, the film was surprisingly successful at finding compelling threads of human existence hidden among the commonplace and the mundane, and it did so without coming across as contrived.
A good portion of the film’s austere aesthetic can be attributed to its cinematography. Apart from its exquisite framing, which showed a flair for creative angles and unusual perspectives, there was nothing noteworthy about the overall style. The film showed a diverse patchwork approach that shifted constantly. At times it employed close-up shots to give the illusion of an intimate, personal story and yet other scenes like that of Aubrey’s public outbursts were shot from a considerable distance casting his failure in a somewhat impersonal, inconsequential light. Most of the film relied on short, static shots but yet still found time for longer takes that involved a lot of camera movement. Granted the long take that gets used doing the film’s one true moment of chaos was only mildly effective. In general the overall camerawork seemed rather ordinary. At best you could argue that it served the acting well, but in doing so it left a lot of heavy lifting to the performers in order to carry this film.
And carry the film they did. I thought the acting was superb. As customary as it is to attribute the authorship of a film to its director, there’s a part of me that wants to regard this as Alison Steadman’s film. I got the impression that she had as much to do with the film’s quality as anyone else. Even in the early stages of the film her tendency to punctuate most of her lines with a coy chuckle of laughter was interesting. This hinted at someone who was mirthful and happy-go-lucky in their life but was not able to totally embrace this state of mind. It was a gesture that concealed as much as it revealed, and this small nuance in her performance was pitch perfect. There was great complexity in her portrayal of the character and Steadman’s brilliance really came to the surface during the film’s more tense, dramatic exchanges. In the lengthy discussion between her and Horrocks near the end of the film, there was a certain grace in how Steadman exhibited both a forceful and yet an empathetic tone in this scene.
Jane Horrocks did an excellent job of bringing an ample supply of personality to the role of an ill-tempered, anti-social misanthrope, easily making Nicola the most interesting character in the whole film. Still it was the occurrence of two scenes that allowed Horrocks to show the main flaw with this character; that she could easily be intimidated by intellectual reason. Horrocks was wonderful at showing Nicola’s vulnerability in both scenes adding some depth to the character, allowing one to see her as more than just a caricature of a shrill-voiced, sarcastic layabout. I also really enjoyed the relationship that both Steadman and Horrocks developed between their characters which served as the only true source of intrigue in the film, in addition to providing a great deal of emotional heft which was downright captivating.
The acting from the male characters wasn’t nearly as engaging and I feel the need to add Claire Skinner to this list given the tomboyishness of her character. Given the way her hair was cut short, the way she dressed, and the way she would casually mention her ability to score supplies for one of her father’s umpteenth unfinished household projects, she projected a strange vibe of masculinity to the role. In spite of this the character was too straight-laced and ‘normal’ to gather much interest. The best part of Skinner’s performance was her willingness to be as skeptical as Nicola in regard to her father’s ventures. I also thought her scenes with Horrocks were interesting in that as a sibling her character was afforded a more cordial relationship with Nicola, which provided Horrocks with additional opportunity to flesh out her character. But such scenes offered little to Skinner. Overall I thought the performance was boring and sterile, with line deliveries that at times bordered on being robotic. There was a certain emotion and character to the way Horrocks and Steadman performed their material that seemed missing with Skinner.
Jim Broadbent was much better at injecting some modest charm into his role as the patriarch of the family, but is tragically stuck in a character that simply isn’t very compelling. For most of the film the portrayal was tepid and lacking in intrigue. Andy comes across as a drab, ordinary everyman who’s forced to work to support his family. Even when his character got drunk Broadbent couldn’t generate much excitement and ultimately got overshadowed by Steadman in the scene. The most fascinating male character was easily that of Aubrey played by Timothy Spall. Early on Spall gave the character a very clumsy, awkward, nerdy persona which suggested a role that might provide some comic relief. And yet Spall ever so slightly tapped into a more sinister, sleazy side to the character with his impulsive outbursts of anger and his cringe worthy romantic advances that bordered on being predatory. Unlike Broadbent his character is one who really commands your attention when getting drunk. Spall gave a good, spirited performance, even if Aubrey is often unpleasant in his oafish mannerisms. Spall’s performance for me was a microcosm of the film in that it clearly had intent to be an understated comedy with a light cheerful tone, before ultimately transitioning into a family melodrama with a subtle dark undercurrent. I must admit that I did not find the film particularly funny and rarely laughed at what I saw. Life is Sweet though was better when it aimed for more dramatic content and embraced the tension that existed between the characters.
The acting performances were aided by some excellently written dialogue which at its best showed similarities to the work of Andrea Dunbar in its unfiltered realism and unflinching authenticity. Still much like Dunbar’s work it rarely transcended the petty squabbles of the underclass. At its worst some of the lines were awkwardly random, many of which seemed to be written for Skinner to perform. For instance during the dinner scene Nat just blurts out that it’s the ‘year of the horse’, for which none of the other characters offer any real response. This fact is never mentioned again and seems rather pointless within the whole scope of the film. Such content only served to reinforce the utter lack of any real narrative. It’s not hard to view this as a film about nothing in particular; completely devoid in direction and showing little forward progression in its sequencing. Scenes like that of Nicola and Nat having a chat on the sofa about raising kids practically appeared out of nowhere as cinematic padding.
Life is Sweet ultimately relied on its characters to draw you into the film. Even its modest theme of personal ambition is explored through three of its characters. In the character of Aubrey you see someone who has plenty of ambition, but who can’t avoid going about it in the wrong way. Andy on the other hand is a man constantly tempted by ideas that he can never seem to carry forth to fruition. It’s fairly obvious that his caravan venture won’t succeed and that’s to Broadbent’s credit in how he played the role. Then there’s Nicola who has practically no ambition whatsoever apart from passively clinging to political stances that she holds largely by way of personal inclination rather than for any intellectual reason. In this film all three are doomed to failure due to their own unique personality defects and ironically all are portrayed in a film that might have succeeded in large part by not being too overambitious. Such characters are shown in a film that has no desire to judge them or use them to make some sort of grand statement about the human condition. These characters exist simply because they do. Even if you think that Leigh has done better, more important films in his career (and I think most people probably do) this one is not without its share of charm or beauty.