All or Nothing - Mike Leigh

All or Nothing'. Mike Leigh 2002 The first third of this film shows us a collection of unpleasantly depressing characters on a south London housing estate. Their lives are wretched, their vocabulary and conversation limited, so that I felt like not even giving the DVD to a charity shop because of its horribly stereotyped view of the working or underclass in contemporary London. By the end I was crying, moved by the central character - Timothy Spall's taxi driver - who reminded me of myself once on holiday with my husband but temporarily cast into utter wretched despair - feeling I would rather be dead if our relationship should fall apart. It's as if Mike Leigh sets himself the challenge to take all the worst stereotypes of the poor and after presenting us with characters we can scarcely bear to think exist then develops them to a point where at least some of them become people so real to us that we long for the best for them. This director works via long improvisations which actors find alarming and wonderful. Their statements are on the DVD and it's a relief to see these actors - not those grim characters after all - but existing outside the Mike Leigh workshop. They didn't get a script but explored their characters and acted only knowing at any point what their character would know. Watching them talk about the process reminds me of the intensity of a psychodrama holiday I once went to on Skyros. Ruth Sheen as Maureen for me provides the most memorable and joyous moments in the story as she sings in the pub and becomes a beautiful, confident and subtle performer who could have had a stage career if she weren't living the life she has. Mike Leigh says in his interview that they are lucky to work in a loving atmosphere where they go 'on voyages of danger which produce the goods' which are 'a heightened and distilled reality'. I believe films are the greatest art form of our era - paralleling medieval cathedrals in their wide scope and combining of many talents which are largely left as anonymous contributors to the audience despite the end credits.