british – Page 2 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989)
Written and directed by Peter Greenaway

From its abrasive opening moments, you know you are in for a unique experience. English gangster Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) has his lackeys toss someone who has failed him out onto the streets as stray dogs wander over. The scene is flanked by a truck full of fresh seafood on one side and a truck of meat on the other. Spica proceeds to begin what will be an endless monologue, yammering in his Cockney dialect as if he is enchanted by hearing his own voice. He says nothing of import. He proceeds to strip & batter the poor man on the ground and then smear dog shit over his body, leaving him there to rot. Spica and his entourage move on to the restaurant he’s purchased, where the criminal believes he can hold court.

Movie Review – Happy-Go-Lucky

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

I remember when this film came out, and a significant part of the discourse was how annoying the main character was. In revisiting it, I didn’t find that to be true. Oh yes, Poppy is very positive, but she reminded me of the Kindergarten teachers I worked alongside as an elementary teacher. Her seemingly endless cheeriness serves a purpose in Leigh’s story. It’s a protection against the nihilism of the world around her, which I think we all can admit is easy to sink into. I know that in real life, I probably would feel overwhelmed and overstimulated being in Poppy’s presence for long periods. The mistake many characters make, and I suspect it is the same with the audience, is that because Poppy is so cheerful, she must be a fool. And that is not true in the slightest.

Movie Review – Vera Drake

Vera Drake (2004)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh’s second foray into historical drama takes us back to the early 1950s. The UK is still healing from the wounds of World War II, and people get on with their lives. It’s also the first of his films that I don’t think quite hits the mark. There’s a very potent moral space to be explored with Vera Drake, but Leigh and his acting collaborators seem to avoid it. That would be the more interesting place to go than where we do, which is a fairly bog standard story. If you have even the slightest experience with cinema, then you’ll likely know where this film is going the minute you learn about Drake’s side gig and the volunteer work she does for her community.

Movie Review – All or Nothing

All or Nothing (2002)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh doesn’t cast people that meet the Hollywood standards of “beauty,” but damn if his performers are not always beautiful & captivating. They reveal that actual beauty is not a series of symmetrical physical features on the face or a toned body but in the ability to capture moments of the human experience. We often must rush past these moments in our daily lives because the systems that rule us demand we go faster. Within a Leigh film, the actor can sit in a moment, examine & explore it, and find the truth within it. Leigh’s films are all about the reality of what it means to be a human being alive in these times, seeking connection & meaning.

Movie Review – Secrets & Lies

Secrets & Lies (1996)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh has presented us with some of the best British female film performances of the latter half of the 20th century. He has a troupe of performers, many of whom are fantastic actresses – Alison Steadman, Ruth Sheen, Katrin Cartildge, and Sally Hawkins. The crown jewel among them is Lesley Manville, but more on her in a later review. It doesn’t surprise me that a filmmaker can bring out such strong performances with actresses he’s been collaborating with for decades. The rapport they share must be as smooth as butter by this point. The even more impressive feat is when he can get that same level of performance out of an actress he’s working with for the first time. Secrets & Lies provides two of these performances and is one of Leigh’s finest achievements.

Movie Review – Naked

Naked (1993)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

For those not alive in the 1990s, a specific element is difficult to recapture. Due to a simplistic view of numbers, many people felt doom & gloom over the fact that the calendar would one day soon start with “20” rather than “19.” It sounds quaint compared to today’s world, where nothing seemed entirely significant about “2020” until there was. I do think the Cold War fueled many of the anxieties of the 1980s and preceding decades, but with “communism defeated,” you’d think the children of the West would be enjoying an endless capitalist bacchanal. It wasn’t the case because capitalism was spiraling; it was a long journey from the edge of the sink to the bottom. Mike Leigh was feeling that gloom; the conservative Thatcher era in the UK had left so many people barely holding on by a thread, and with that economic crush, they were becoming nastier to each other.

Movie Review – Life is Sweet

Life Is Sweet (1990)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh could be seen as a director who makes funny little movies about British working-class people’s lives. That is true to an extent. However, there’s so much more happening under the surface of these films, which is Leigh pointing out to us how complex & nuanced lives we see as surface-level can be. Our lives are more complicated than someone like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. We experience life more fully than them, as we are still in contact with what makes us part of the natural world: the struggle for survival. Being working-class in the West is very complex, as you’ve been afforded some distractions & escapes that people in the developing world can only dream of. Yet, you still experience regular anxiety over housing/bills/food/etc. Life is often complicated by our perspective and class position.

Movie Review – High Hopes

High Hopes (1988)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

To see Mike Leigh’s name credited as the maker behind a movie is to signify something. It means you will be treated to some of the best conversations between very human, grounded characters you’ve ever heard. The story will be focused on the working class, with an even-handed mix of misery and mirth. The whole thing will be very British but not in the nationalistic sense; in the communal sense, British people living quiet lives with moments of drama in them. High Hopes was not Leigh’s first picture. Previously, he directed Bleak Moments (1971) with his second feature, Meantime, but he did not come to theaters until 1983. Because Leigh’s preferred method of working is to allow the actors to improvise dialogue during rehearsal sessions, the filmmaker had trouble getting financial backing. But with High Hopes, Leigh’s career finally kicked off in full, leading to a string of fantastic movies that continue to come out today.

PopCult Podcast – All of Us Strangers/The Iron Claw

We finally get to talk about two films from 2023 we have been so excited for. The first is a dreamlike queer fantasy about reckoning with the past so you can start living. The second is the tragic real life story of a professional wrestling dynasty.

PopCult Podcast – The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp/A Matter of Life and Death

It’s a World War II Powell & Pressburger double feature today. In one film we follow the storied life of a career soldier in the British Army as he watches the world change around him. In the other a British soldier gets a second chance a life that might be snatched away from him.