Vera Drake

At one point, about halfway through Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, the lead character's being interrogated by a police detective. She's a saintly lower-class domestic caring for not only her husband and two children, but her ailing mother and neighbor. Oh, and unbeknownst to them all, she performs illegal abortions at no cost for "young girls in trouble." He asks her one question that changes the ramifications for the rest of the movie. This is a film about contradictions, the unexplainable ways in which two entirely divergent lifestyles can exist within one human life. And for a brief moment, while Vera responds to the detective's question, the contradictions seem explainable, the quiet mysteries of Vera's life understandable.

No, I'm not going to tell you what the question is. You'll know which one I'm talking about when you see the movie.

But, of course, just as quickly everything gets complicated again. Just as the abortion debate seems to have no satisfying solution - either restrict women's freedoms or permit the widespread destruction of premature human life - Vera Drake lacks any answers. It's not a work of social commentary, like Leigh's Naked, despite the hot-button controversy at its core. And it's not a period pastiche like Leigh's equally successful Topsy-Turvy. Instead, like this year's Million Dollar Baby, it's a film that deals with a social problem only as the backdrop for an intense observation of human character. It's a psychological exploration disguised as an "issue" movie.



Imelda Staunton's performance as Vera has rightly won her international acclaim, and an Oscar nomination. For the entire first half-hour of the film, all we see of Vera is a charming smile, a bright disposition and a fondness for hot cups of tea. Even during these opening sequences, what Vera lacks in nuance, she makes up for in sheer charm and likability. It's a testament to the film that, even before the central incidents making up its plot kickstart, I was won over by the strength of the charicterization.

Leigh gets these kind of natural performances through extended rehearsal before shooting. The actors are encouraged to improvise most of their lines, and develop their characters internally for weeks before the production even begins. By the time the cameras are rolling, these people have gotten to know their alter-egos, have lived with them for a while. So, there's a repartee, a level of comfort between the actors you don't get in other films.

So, it's kind of delightful just to spend time with Vera's well-realized family unit, including affable her mechanic husband Stan (Phil Davis), chatty son Sid (Daniel Mays), frumpy daughter Ethel (Alex Kelly) and Ethel's soft-spoken fiancee Reg (Eddie Marsan). Once the story kicks into gear, and we find out about Vera's side job as a back alley abortionist, we've become invested in her life.

By inviting us to care about Vera, it could be argued that Leigh's excusing her behavior. Certainly, as far as Vera's concerned, there's no harm in her behavior. She's breaking the law, yes, but she's not attempting to profit from it. She only wants to help out girls with nowhere to turn, in the same way that she always invites lonely single men with no families over to dinner. It's not an act of malfeasance or a disregard for authority. It's a kind gesture.

But at the same time, Leigh refuses to shy away from the grim reality of Vera's underground occupation. The actual procedure she uses is shown on-screen in detail (albeit without blood or gore), and the potentially dangerous consequences are likewise explored. Finally, the traumatic effect of Vera's actions on her extended family comes to haunt her by the film's end. Her attempts to be a good samaritan have ended up causing all of those around her a considerable amount of pain and heartbreak. Again, we're faced with a striking contradiction; by doing good, Vera winds up doing even more harm. Just as her son can't reconcile the warm loving person he knows as his mother with the cold surgical procedures she performs on strange women, the film can't seem to decide whether Vera's behavior all these years has been appropriate or not.

It's a long, dense story, but Leigh keeps Vera Drake riveting by getting all of the small details correct. During the long, nearly unbearable sequence in which Vera's arrested, interrogated and finally arraigned, there's no score or background noise at all. Leigh lets us see only Staunton's tortured face, and hear only her muffled sobs. It's a brave move, and there are times when the intimacy of the scenes becomes almost too much, veering on the melodramatic instead of the naturalistic. But for the most part, Leigh's technique works swimmingly. At a full two hours, Vera Drake remains engaging and bursting with carefully sketched humanity. The film's a triumphant success, among Leigh's finest work.