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| Star Lesley Manville shows affection on this simple poster for Mike Leigh's All or Nothing |
The Bassetts are a working class family in one of London's unenviable housing complexes. Their money are small, and their son is eating himself into an early grave in the small flat.
All or Nothing is written and directed by English master filmmaker Mike Leigh (Bleak Moments (1971)), whose 8th feature it is.
The film follows the discouraging but very human characters in the family: Lesley Manville (Dual Balls (1997, short)) is painfully good as the cashier mother, SPOILER who in the end has to face the fact that she is growing cold towards her husband. A young James Corden (The Three Musketeers (2011)) is astonishingly fat and wholly credible as the tragically alienated son.
Leigh is on home turf with the hard-drinking underclass characters, and again he spins gold out of their miseries: Timothy Spall (Wasteland (2012)) has the film's arguably hardest role as a cab driver, who comes up with unmotivated contemplations and unrealistic solutions to them. Decisive for the film's success, it is not without humor: We are given a good time here, while we instinctually get engaged in the sad, simple fates of the Bassetts. All or Nothing is a beautiful film.
Related post:
Mike Leigh: Another Year (2010) or, Life in England
Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here
Cost: 9 mil. $
Box office: 2.8 mil. $
= Mega-flop (returned 0.31 times its cost)
[All or Nothing premiered 17 May (Cannes Film Festival, in competition) and runs 128 minutes. Shooting took place in England, including London. The film opened #67 to a 25k $ first weekend in 7 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #38 and in 16 theaters (different weeks), grossing 201k $ (7.2 % of the total gross). The film's biggest 3 markets were production country the UK with 938k $ (33.5 %), Argentina with 925k $ (33 %) and Spain with 346k $ (12.4 %). The film lost the Palme d'Or to The Pianist; it was nominated for a British Independent Spirit award, 3 European Film awards and some other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Leigh returned with Vera Drake (2004). Manville returned in 4 TV credits prior to Vera Drake; Spall in 3 video, TV and short credits prior to his theatrical return in Nicholas Nickleby (2002). All or Nothing is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.05/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of All or Nothing?
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