Another Year by Mike Leigh

In Another Year, seasons change, people cross each other’s lives, and feelings are condemned to evolve. Fourteen years after his Palme d’Or for Secret & Lies, Mike Leigh’s new feature seems miraculous. Juggling with absurd euphoria and violent lucidity, the British director follows a group of ordinary middle-aged people connected by work, family, love and friendship. Out of this chain of everyday gatherings – a barbecue, a cup of tea, a visit, a funeral – in which happiness and sorrow coexist, blooms an extraordinary and amazingly alive work.

Through a wonderful gallery of characters, Another Year paints the portrait of a generation haunted by its past, fulfilled in a peaceful existence or broken by unfinished business. A harsh yet touching sobriety allows the film to avoid reducing itself to a talky and boring tale of ordinary people and places, making it cross its own limits to sketch an ever-changing world in which suddenly, tears can become laughter. Mike Leigh owes the merit for this fragile balance to his incredibly natural and deeply human actors, particularly Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen and Peter Wight.

By Geoffrey Crété