juneebuggy
Wow what a grim and depressing movie. Centering on a working class London family in crisis, the story focuses on the father -a depressed cabbie, his aloof common law wife and their two overweight and aimless teenage children.We also get caught up in some of the neighbours from the council housing complex with a host of problems; violence, alcoholism, abuse, unplanned pregnancies, creepy guys preying on girls.Anyways this was bleak all-round. The acting is good though from a mostly unknown cast except Timothy Spall who is fantastic- just heartbreaking as Phil. (To his wife, in tears) "You treat me like sh**." 8/31/14
mike dewey
I've just read some of the other comments on this film and am now engaged in a bout with writers block because in no way will I begin to shed a better light on our subject film than the engaging analyses already posted on this site. This tale about a lower working class South London family in a nondescript housing project is one that simultaneously depresses and uplifts the spirit. You'll find no plastic yuppie rich boy/girl "wannabee" hot shots roaming about the screen, spewing ostentatious insipidities in this film. These are people on the low end of the economic ladder who make no pretensions or excuses for their situation in life.Mike Leigh and company totally hit the proverbial nail on the head in this one. Suffice it to say that Tim Spall and Lesley Manville each rendered riveting performances in their portrayals of the unmarried couple with two grown kids. The realistic "mise en scene" and the accompanying dialog/story line were grittily absorbing works of art, especially the long scene toward the film's conclusion. I may as well bestow kudos to the rest of the cast as well because their contributions, both individually and collectively, greatly augmented the story line as a whole. This modern gem, in its ambient unpretentiousness, so capably underscores the unmitigated power of love, acceptance, and triumph of the spirit no matter how grim the situation.
RanchoTuVu
A drama about the working poor in London highlighting the kinds of problems a lot of people with limited resources face, such as alcoholism, obesity, and teen pregnancies. It takes the viewer down a pretty dismal path but does so in powerful and touching scenes. Timothy Spall, as the taxi driver and father of two overweight adult children, is a complete natural in his performance, looking like he's beaten down, but inside carrying a lot of human warmth that just needs an opportunity to show itself. The film has plenty of drama and courage, giving us the unglamorous characters with the kind of lives that would challenge anyone to locate the positive.
fedor8
Solid drama, and quite weepy, the way Leigh makes them nowadays. There's practically no humour at all, which is a shame. He used to do these sorts of "heavy" dramas but with a degree of pathos and wit, which raised its level well above other kitchen-sink dramas. (I always thought Leigh did these films the way they should be done, unlike the hopelessly overrated Ken Loach.) "Naked" was excellent, "Meantime" and "Bleak Moments" were very good, "Life Is Sweet" was good, but "All Or Nothing"?... Merely average, and quite forgettable. Spall's comedic potential is wasted. He plays a miserable, ultra-depressed, overweight cab-driver who suffers from the fact that his wife (apparently) no longer loves him. His kids are extremely over-weight; the son is a lazy, unmannered slob, and the daughter is hard-working but withdrawn, extremely shy. His wife is miserable, too – but you could have guessed that. The other characters? Mostly miserable, frustrated Londoners – you know, that sort of thing. Leigh covers no new ground here. It's just another family drama targeted at female audiences (and pretentious male ones). It is a bit annoying that Leigh opts for the "safe and easy" route by doing an all-out drama. We all know that writing a drama is incomparably easier than writing one which has comedy in it. Leigh has become lazy. Either that, or he wants to be even more recognized as an "artist", and what better way to do that than by making all-out drama like that abortion-rights movie he did recently. The critics loved it – predictably. An interesting cast, the acting is quite good, but where are the laughs?
AD
