With regard to the appearance of the characters, those with 'bad teeth and funny faces' or the ones who 'look like they might belong in a mental institution', I'll only say that like very much of the best English-language drama that is born in the U.K., the characters are and feel like real people. You know, not vacuous seeming and generic-looking 'pretty' types. Why, what a brash approach! Imagine, Leigh values authenticity! Where does he get off, not realizing some film 'reviewers' want to see American Gladiators and starlets in gritty character studies? The cheek.

And this device Leigh employs, you know, the one where he 'condescends' to these evocative, sympathetic characters while simultaneously painting a heart-rending and quietly jarring study of manners and morals at street-level! What a Machiavelli! The sparse and real dialogue must be so 'carefully calculated' that it unhinges the viewing experience of some.

This film is a detailed and intricate exposee of an unkown time as seen from the viewpoint of the second decade of the twenty-first century. Sixty years never seemed a chasm so wide. In 1950 in poor working-class districts of London, memories of the blitz were fresh and immediate, and intricate details of who died and where and how were vernacular, spoken in a language everyone knew. Neighbourhoods were incredibly intimate and tight-knit extended 'families' of the people who had done the heavy-lifting of war, sending sons (and daughters) away. Those who stayed were mercilessly bombarded and all the horrors of injury and disease that came afterward were a grim years-long reminder of the hell that came from the skies. The incredibly sharp contrast that Leigh draws with the return to innocent daily life is masterful medicine to remind us that darkness fades. These characters are exactly as they should be. Full of the quiet understated joy of daily preoccupation with life. We don't need flash and dash to draw these scenes, the reality of the working-class and the quiet almost ego-less studies in these performances are exactly on the mark.

I understand that for some viewers, the ability to actually know what they are looking at is elusive. This is more true with authentically re-created period settings and the manners that inhabit them than it is with a more -egalitarian- approach to movie-making. Thankfully we have the superb work of Mike Leigh to remind us that real film is not only possible but far more interesting than the average flick.

All these performances are superbly good, from Imelda Staunton to Sally Hawkins and even the amazingly endearing work that Alex Kelly turns in. This is a master-class in movie-making, a clinic. It's worth watching twice. I felt more than 'trusted' while watching it. And not at all condescended to.