VERA DRAKE II – Imelda Staunton

VERA DRAKE Review: Part I
Elsewhere, the director imbues Vera Drake with a somewhat artificial flavor. True, the film’s 1950s working-class environment looks real — cramped homes and ugly clothes — but Leigh, as usual, overdoes the unattractiveness of his characters. His laborers have bad teeth and funny faces, and several of them look like they might belong in a mental institution. (Alex Kelly’s Ethel, Vera’s pathologically shy daughter, is a typical inhabitant of Mike Leigh’s Mondo Labor.) Worse yet, Leigh treats them like children — sympathetically, of course, but with a not inconsiderable degree of condescension.
Despite the meticulous preparations and rehearsals that go into Leigh’s projects — or perhaps because of them — several performances feel much too carefully calculated. [...]

by Andre Soares | November 14, 2004   
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