Vera Drake is a kindly soul. In the gloomy and oppressive streets of north London, she's a beacon of goodwill, cheerfully caring for the aged and infirm before and after her job as a housekeeper. At home she's a warm and loving wife and mother, doting on her painfully shy daughter by indulging in a little matchmaking with an equally socially inept neighbor. She's patient, energetic, has a heart of gold, and in her spare time, performs illegal home abortions.
Vera Drake is the latest film by British realist Mike Leigh, best known in the US for 1996's Secrets and Lies. That film's depiction of a reunion between adoptee and birth mother was devastating in its cumulative emotional power, and the scene of the two women's first meeting was so powerful it helped earn both actresses Academy Award nominations. The film cemented Leigh's reputation as an actor's director, and his method of improvisational shooting became known as "The Leigh Way." But though Vera aims for the same effect, the result is more depressing than illuminating.
The story is as basic as they come, the stuff of Victorian melodrama. The entire first act of the film is dedicated to showing how good-hearted Vera is, as we see her unflappable spirit bouncing from one onerous task to another with nary a flag in energy. But what we see of her experience feels inorganic, like a setup; scenes of minor happiness feel as though they exist not to paint a portrait of an everyday life, but rather like Leigh is erecting little straw huts of happiness for no other purpose then to burn them down.
It's all very tragic with a capital "T," becoming downright lugubrious at times. One can't help wish that someone would just throw a sunny coat of paint over all the artfully dank, underlit interiors. Leigh does his damndest to hammer home some heavy points, like the bluntly obvious contrast between Vera's furtive back alley missions and the ease with which the daughter of one of her well-to-do housekeeping clients procures a legal abortion by feigning mental instability. But I found myself hoping for a more complex scenario, such as one where the young woman is forced to come to Vera for assistance. The old Mike Leigh would have relished the possibilities for improvisations of character that such a chance meeting would engender. I'd like to see what the first-rate cast might've pulled off with less schematic material.
Indeed the performances are, for the most part, exceptional. Imelda Staunton marvelously conveys Vera's slightly exaggerated chipper demeanor; in her bleak surroundings she's not just whistling past the graveyard, she's virtually living in one. Later in the film, the look on her face when she realizes she's been caught is truly haunting. Phil Davis and Eddie Marsan have some terrific scenes together as Vera's husband Stan, and Reg, her sad sack son-in-law, trading still-fresh war stories that are bereft of all romanticism. And Ruth Sheen as Lily, Vera's childhood friend and black marketeering assistant, is memorably curdled like month-old Dover cream.
For all its controversial aspects, the subject matter isn't a problem, either. Though the film takes place in 1950, abortion and its legal, moral, and practical implications haven't been shrouded by the mists of time. It's indicative of this relatively gutless period of filmmaking that abortion is rarely dealt with. But unremittingly dour, dreary, feel-bad films don't do anyone any favors; who besides the already converted is likely to be sympathetic to Vera's plight? The film will likely be praised as a "feminist" work because of its heroine's martyrdom. That's a shame; cinema already has enough tragic, downtrodden women.
In a way, Leigh should be lauded for bravery in dedicating an entire film to an issue he feels deeply about, but he bludgeons us with his agenda rather than explores his subject. We're not allowed to form an opinion of Vera. Leigh seems to have forgotten the difference between art and propaganda: art lets us decide for ourselves.
It's ironic and disappointing that Leigh's work should take such a stiff, formal direction when in the past he's been known for improvisation, and in fact is often considered an heir apparent to the maverick independent filmmaker John Cassavetes. Even at his most emotionally trying, Cassavetes never tried to make you feel bad. Confuse, confound, irritate, yes, but always with a love of humanity.
If you're not familiar with Cassavetes, you're in luck. The Criterion Collection has issued an eight-disc boxed set entitled "John Cassavetes: Five Films," containing his most personal work: Shadows, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Opening Night. It's a sort of Rosetta Stone of Indie filmmaking.
If there ever was a patron saint of artistic independence, it's Cassavetes. Nowadays the term "independent" is thrown about loosely by corporations trying to trade on the cachet of a term that's synonymous with "integrity," but Cassavetes paid a hefty toll for his hard-earned freedom. He started out as an actor, making his name first in TV, then in films like Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen. Along the way he decided that Hollywood had failed to produce work of real depth that tackled, as he called it, "the human problem," so he set out to reinvent filmmaking from the ground up. Incredibly, he succeeded.
Cassavetes made home movies in the truest sense, using his own money, borrowing or scamming equipment, and gathering a core group of actor friends like Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, Seymour Cassel, and wife Gena Rowlands, who constituted a sort of repertory company. He also cast family members and stepped in himself. Cassavetes wrote his own scripts, basing them on events in his and his friends' lives, and used his home as a production studio, shooting in one room, editing in another, and mortgaging the place when funds got tight.
Cassavetes' plots are almost absurdly simple. His rawly emotional, bursting-at-the-seams films initially alienated many viewers and critics, but their uncompromising truthfulness has come to inspire a generation of Indie filmmakers. Digital production lends itself readily to a Cassavetes-like faster, looser approach. The baroque formalism of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, which influenced generations of filmmakers, is simply beyond many modern directors' reach. Yet Cassavetes' work, sadly disrespected in his lifetime, now seems utterly contemporary.
A familiarity with Cassavetes' work is essential to understanding what constitutes independent filmmaking today. His films endure because of his commitment to digging deep to find the truth, and they challenge us to do the same. Check one out and see where it takes you and leaves you. You may never be the same.