Vera Drake
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| Vera Drake | |
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| Directed by | Mike Leigh |
| Written by | Mike Leigh |
| Starring | Imelda Staunton, Richard Graham, Eddie Marsan, Anna Keaveney, Alex Kelly, Daniel Mays, Phil Davis. |
| Produced by | Simon Channing-Williams |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema (USA) |
| Release date | October 22, 2004 (USA) |
| Runtime | 125 minutes |
| Language | English |
| IMDb page | |
Vera Drake (2004) is a British film directed by Mike Leigh. The movie recounts the story of a working-class woman in London in 1950 whose values conflict with the social mores of the period.
As of 28 August 2005, it had grossed $12,713,051 at the box office worldwide, including over $3.7 million in the U.S. [1].
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[edit] Plot
- Tagline: Wife. Mother. Criminal.
Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) is tirelessly devoted to her family, looking after her husband and children, her elderly mother, and a sick neighbour. Vera's daughter Ethel (Alex Kelly) works in a factory, and her son Sid (Daniel Mays) tailors men's suits. Her husband Stanley (Phil Davis) is an auto-mechanic. Although Vera and her family do not live lavishly, their strong family bonds hold them together.
Vera works as a house cleaner. However, unbeknownst to her family, she also serves as a backroom abortionist. She receives no money for this, believing her help to be an act of generosity, though her partner Lily (Ruth Sheen), a hard-bitten wheeler-dealer who also carries on a black-market trade in scarce postwar foodstuffs, does charge for arranging the abortions without Vera's knowledge. We are also introduced to a character named Susan (Sally Hawkins), who is the daughter of one of Vera's employers and whose story is one of the film's subplots. Susan is raped and impregnated and asks a friend to put her in contact with a doctor who performs abortions. The practice was illegal in 1950's England, but affluent young women could undergo legal, "therapeutic" abortions by finding doctors willing to testify that the procedure was necessary to their mental health. When one of her own patients nearly dies, however, Vera Drake is tracked down by the police, arrested, and imprisoned. Her family is shocked, bewildered, and then divided after her arrest.
[edit] Improvisation
The entire film, as with all Mike Leigh's film and television work, was developed through an extended improvisation. Only Imelda Staunton knew ahead of time that the subject of the film was abortion. None of the cast members playing the family members, including Staunton, knew that Vera was to be arrested until the moment the actors playing the police knocked on the door of the house they were using for rehearsals. Their genuine reactions of shock and confusion provided the raw material for their dialogue and actions.
[edit] On the Director: Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh is known to use unusual methods when making his films: “Leigh’s actors literally have to find their characters through improvisation and research the ways people in specific communities speak and behave. Leigh and his cast immerse themselves in the local life before creating the story” (1994: 7: Watson 29). Critic Roger Ebert stated, “His method is to gather a cast for weeks or months of improvisation in which they create and explore their characters. I don’t think the technique has ever worked better than here; the family life in those cramped little rooms is so palpably real that as the others wait around the dining table while Vera speaks to policeman behind the kitchen door, I felt as if I were waiting there with them. It’s not that we “identify” so much as that the film quietly and firmly includes us” (2 of 4).
Leigh’s films rely on capturing his actors' unscripted emotions. Another example of the technique can be seen in Ken Loach's Land and Freedom. While other filmmakers may regard his method as unsophisticated, the naturalism of Leigh's films has proven to be quite engaging. The dramatic changes in physical appearance, movement, and disposition that Staunton’s character undergoes, for example, are particularly striking. Vera goes from cheerful and fun-loving to depressed, immobilized, and fear-stricken. The facial expressions and reactions of all of the characters are similarly and consistently realistic.
[edit] Analysis
In "Vera Drake," Leigh incorporated elements of his own childhood. He grew up in North Salford, Lancashire, and experienced a very ordinary, but socioeconomically mixed, life as the son of a doctor and a midwife. In his book entitled, The Cinema of Mike Leigh: A Sense of the Real, Leigh wrote, “I lived in this particular kind of working-class district with some relations living in slightly leafier districts up the road. So there was always a tension, or at least a duality: those two worlds were forever colliding. So you constantly get the one world and its relationship with the other going on in my films.” (Fuller 1995: xi, xxi: 51)
In this film, as in other Leigh works, such as High Hopes, the audience can observe the different social classes interacting. The Drakes are a working-class family, while Stanley’s brother Frank and his wife Joyce have moved into the middle class. Susan and her mother are upper class. Owing to Susan's social status, she is able to arrange and pay for a safe abortion, while the women assisted by Vera are not.
Another author, Jim Leach, stated, “While Leigh seems to offer a fairly conservative view of gender politics through his recurring female characters who want to become mothers, his films highlight the discrepancy between the ideological emphasis on the importance of family and the actual social conditions that place external and internal pressures on family relationships” (61). In "Vera Drake," the character Joyce, who claims that she wants to become a mother, is also depicted as the most selfish character in the film. Barely middle-class and insecure, she is preoccupied with material wealth and improving her social status. Her response to Vera's arrest is to distance herself from this shame and embarrassment, though her long-awaited pregnancy plays a role in her reaction.
The sums of money seem rather small. But two guineas in 1950 would be £48 in 2005 money. A hundred guineas - the price of a quasi-legal abortion - would be £2400. [2]
[edit] Themes
The importance of family is an ongoing theme in the film. The Drake household is filled with warmth, laughter, and uncomplicated happiness. Vera and Stanley Drake have a strong marriage, and after Vera’s secret emerges, although the family has mixed feelings about what she has done, they remain loyal to her. Stanley’s brother, Frank, is married to a self-centered woman, and their relationship counterbalances the Drakes'. Another significant theme involves morality versus legality. Morally, Vera believes that she is doing the right thing by “helping out” women who do not wish to give birth. She is an honest woman who feels driven to perform these procedures out of sheer charity and her understanding of the consequences of unwanted pregnancies in her socio-economic environment. Vera’s good intentions, however, are irrelevant in a court of law. It is noteworthy that Vera's son Sid strongly represents the anti-abortion position and that the representatives of law and authority -- doctors and nurses, the police, and the judge -- are not presented as villains but rather as decent people who are simply doing their jobs properly in the context of 1950's legal and social mores.
[edit] Awards & nominations
- 2004 European Film Awards - won "Best Actress" & nominated for "Best Film"
- 2004 Venice Film Festival - won "Golden Lion" for Best Film & "Volpi Cup" for Best Actress
- 2005 Golden Globes - nominated "Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama"
- 2005 Academy Awards - nominated Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay
- 2005 BAFTAs - won "Best Director", "Best Actress in a Leading Role" & "Costume Design". Nominated for "Best Film", "Best Supporting Actor", "Best Supporting Actress", and "Best British Film".
