Mike Leigh's 'Another Year' at first feels like a very smug movie: a likable, affluent couple pass their time together over the course of a year, often in the company of variously inadequate friends who alternately entertain them and require their support. Eventually, a drama emerges from the growing stresses of one of these relationships; but it's a very well-signalled development. What makes the film a success is the sheer skill with which director and cast pull off the individual encounters: Leigh famously prepares for writing the final drafts of his scripts through improvisation, and this film in particular feels like an assembly of scenes emerging from a workshop, but there's no denying they're beautifully done, drawing you into the misery of the characters even where you knew exactly what was coming. And gradually, the film's perspective shifts from that of the insiders (whose compassion is increasing revealed as finite) to that of the outsiders. The abrupt ending offers no promises of happiness to those who didn't have it already when the movie began.
Review of Another Year
