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Film

Indie Flicks: A dark story that spirals downward

By STEVE PERSALL
Published January 27, 2005

Vera Drake (R) (125 min.) - Viewing a Mike Leigh film is akin to visiting the dentist; you know there's a benefit to enduring such tedious discomfort, but that doesn't necessarily make the experience enjoyable. Leigh can always be counted upon to deliver the feel-bad movie experience of the year.

Vera Drake is his latest dirge, and despite a strong, Golden Globe-nominated performance by Imelda Staunton in the title role, it's nothing to strongly recommend. It's a social-issue movie that won't take sides and a family drama that fails to connect with anyone whose home isn't equally downbeat. Pessimism is the only moral of the story. People don't usually die in Leigh's films, but the filmmaker seldom offers any good reasons to keep on living, either.

The issue in Vera Drake is abortion, set in post-World War II London when many women turned to nonprofessionals like Vera, the least likely person to be doing it. She's a 50ish working-class mother known in the neighborhood as a kind soul who cares for invalids, welcomes guests for a rare square meal and always has a kettle of water boiling for tea. Vera doesn't perform abortions for money, only for a chance to get black-market discounts on groceries. You can't imagine a more sympathetic figure in such a controversial position.

When one of her patients nearly dies of infection, Vera is arrested and her family becomes aware of her moonlighting job. Do her family members rally to support her? No, they simply mope and argue in dialect occasionally needing subtitles. Does she strive to argue for the rights of women to end unwanted pregnancies? No, this apolitical woman who wants only to help troubled people simply cries for what she'll lose by going to prison. Does Leigh intend only to plumb the depths of depression with characters who know no other feelings? Sadly, yes.

Yet there's an admirably authentic dead-end aura to Vera Drake, and that's no small feat because Leigh and his actors must certainly live sunnier lives than their characters. The Drakes' apartment is so cramped that we feel like invisible eavesdroppers on the family's small talk, an overdone tactic in nearly impenetrable dialects as Leigh strives to make these characters "real." Even in such close quarters, we feel distanced from their situations, barely amused by their quirks and mostly unmoved by their problems. Just observing isn't the same as becoming involved.

The lone saving grace is Staunton's performance, the way she conveys Vera's compassion for everyone, even under morally conflicted conditions. The film is constructed to set up the loss of her cheery demeanor, which isn't justified in the first place. She's the only character with an arc, but it's a sharp bend from empty optimism to tearful defeat.

If there's a defining moment in Vera Drake, it's late in the movie when Vera's mousy daughter is asked to marry an equally socially inept man. She smiles, looking prettier, nearly to the point of being unrecognizable. A ray of light crosses her face, the brightest image in the entire film. Immediately we realize how strange this is for a Leigh movie and skeptically expect that smile to be meaningless soon. It will. B-

[Last modified January 26, 2005, 10:43:05]