- Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain--a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.
- Vera Drake is a selfless woman who is completely devoted to, and loved by, her working class family. She spends her days doting on them and caring for her sick neighbor and elderly mother. However, she also secretly visits women and helps them induce miscarriages for unwanted pregnancies. While the practice itself was illegal in 1950s England, Vera sees herself as simply helping women in need, and always does so with a smile and kind words of encouragement. When the authorities finally find her out, Vera's world and family life rapidly unravel.—Sujit R. Varma
- In 1950, in London, Vera Drake is a simple woman of a low-class but happy family. She works cleaning upper-class houses; her beloved husband is a mechanic and works with his brother in a repair shop; her son is a tailor; and her daughter tests and packs electric lamps. The helpful Vera is a very good and cooperative woman, helping her sick mother, a handicapped neighbor and whoever needs her. She also induces miscarriages in women who do not want to have children--without any remuneration. When a woman whose husband is serving overseas falls pregnant as the result of an affair has complications with her intervention and goes to the hospital, the police investigate the occurrence, and the world--and the family--of Vera fall apart with this tragedy.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) is tirelessly devoted to her family, looking after her husband and children, her elderly mother, and a sick neighbour. Vera's daughter Ethel (Alex Kelly) works in a factory, and her son Sid (Daniel Mays) tailors men's suits. Her husband Stanley (Phil Davis) is a car mechanic. Although Vera and her family do not live lavishly, their strong family bonds hold them together.
Vera works as a house cleaner. However, unbeknown to her family, she also serves as a backroom abortionist. She receives no money for this, believing her help to be an act of generosity, though her partner Lily (Ruth Sheen), a hard-bitten wheeler-dealer who also carries on a black-market trade in scarce postwar foodstuffs, does charge for arranging the abortions without Vera's knowledge. We are also introduced to a character named Susan (Sally Hawkins), who is the daughter of one of Vera's employers and whose story is one of the film's subplots. Susan is raped by a man she was dating, becomes pregnant, and asks a friend to put her in contact with a doctor who performs abortions. In Susan's case, the psychiatrist helpfully prompts her with the correct answers, so that he can recommend her abortion on the grounds that she might be desperate enough to harm herself.
The sums of money might seem rather small to modern viewers, but two guineas in 1950 would be £48 in 2005. A hundred guineas, the price of a psychiatrist-approved abortion, would be £2400.
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