All or Nothing
[Editor’s note: spoiler warning.]
Directed and written by Mike Leigh.
Acted by: Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Alison Garland, James Corden, Ruth
Sheen, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson.
Living in a housing estate somewhere in London are a group of people that we already know. A family struggling to make ends meet, a single mum, unemployed kids, an alcoholic wife, a pregnant teenager. In All or Nothing we get to know them better. Mike Leigh allows our gaze to linger. We sit with them longer. We hear their words more carefully. We notice more. They are even less glamorous than we remember. So very, very ordinary.
Phil drives a cab. He watches quietly, the passing parade of people and situations through his rear vision mirror. His gentle compassion embraces all. An addict who can’t afford to pay, a painted lady who insists she can. Late night revelers. An old man taking flowers to a grave. A French Algerian interior designer who discloses her fear of tunnels. Phil assists her, sensitively, and their discussion becomes personal. The subject of love is broached.
Phil is overweight and so are his children. His wife Penny isn’t. She works at a Supermarket checkout with her friend and neighbor, Maureen. As if of a different race Penny reaches out with love to her children but she is hardly big enough to embrace them. She no longer embraces Phil. She moves away when he reaches out to her.
Their son Rory is fat and angry. “Get fucked” is the language of the young in this film. Rory says it with great vengeance, mostly to his mother. He spits venom as he lunges from his chair at the dining table to the couch in front of the TV. There is little scope for compassion when he has a heart attack. But it is his heart attack which brings everyone to their senses. The film climaxes with great emotion and truth.
You are born alone. You die alone. There is nothing you can do about it.
Love is all there is. Without love there is nothing. Without love, life becomes a chore to set things right.
Lou Crow
