Movie Review

Written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring: Imelda Staunton (Vera), Phillip Davis (Stan), Ruth Sheen (Lilly), 125 minutes, 2004.

This begins as a drama about an English family trying to get ahead after W.W.II. The time is 1950. Vera is a kindly, helpful, cheerful woman who works as a domestic for a number of wealthy families. She also provides personal care for several people who are in various stages of illness and age and looks after her ailing mother living on her own. Along the way she invites a shy bachelor to join the family for tea because she doesn't think that he is taking good care of himself. Tea is her solution to any problem, be it pain or social awkwardness. She and her husband Stan have two children, young adults, still living with them and George works for his brother Frank in a small auto garage. "A heart of gold, that woman, a heart of gold", says Frank about his sister-in-law.

Vera also performs abortions and has done for about twenty years. She brings to this task the same kind of bustling cheerfulness, hopefulness and kindness that she displays in other areas of her life. She calls it "helping young women" and never uses the "A" word.

Her childhood friend Lilly (Mrs. Lillian Clarke) meets her for tea and gives her the name of a young woman "who needs help". Lily doesn't have much sympathy for her clients, thinks the Jamaicans should go back where they came from and the others only have themselves to blame for the trouble they are in. However, she cheerfully takes their money but doesn't pass it on to Vera.

The desperate situation of the poor and marginal class is contrasted with the situation of an equally desperate but rich young woman who has been raped and is pregnant. The delicate phrase "forced himself on you?" is used but it's a date rape. Her route is the "Harley Street" doctor who refers her to a psychiatrist who duly goes through the charade of certifying her mental health symptoms and it is all discreetly done in a clinic.

One 'operation' goes bad and a young girl ends up in hospital and almost dies. Her mother has arranged the abortion and is forced to report Lilly and eventually Vera. The police arrive at the family's apartment, ironically at a time when Vera's daughter announces her engagement and Stan's brother Frank and his wife Joyce announce that they are expecting a baby. It is a joyful domestic scene.

The full weight of the law falls on Vera and she is charge under the Offenses Against a Person Act of 1851. The fact that she took no money, (she is shocked and outraged that people would think she was in it for the money), used no crochet hooks or clothes hangers and was a first time offender should count in her favour. Her lawyer hopes for the minimum sentence of 18 months. She gets 21/2 years. The family is shattered and we see them in a final scene sitting silently around the dinner table at home.

This is not an easy movie to watch as we observe the devastation to Vera and her family. She seems a naïve innocent, never able to say the word abortion, seeing herself as a person helping young girls with a health problem, an amateur. "It's not what I do-what you call it! They don't know where to turn to. I help them out."

It may seem shocking but she is a Christ Figure in the story. She acts on a personal level to bring help and healing to a wide variety of people on the margins but her action challenges a hypocritical power structure that administers the law (not in any brutal way- the detective is actually kindly and helpful with no sign of the studied and provocative politeness that can characterize police actions) but is blind to the justice question of who has access and who benefits. She is betrayed and abandoned by her friends and her employers wish her well at a distance but refuse to give character references ("I do not know the man!"). In the end her action was redemptive and the law was changed.

This is a well acted movie and the moral questions are subtly portrayed. It is an ironic story and nobody gets to claim the Moral High Ground.