There were two very gritty, very real dramas made by heavyweight British filmmakers at the festivals in Cannes and Toronto this year.  Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen, which won Best Screenplay at Cannes, is a subtitled film about a gung-ho Scottish teen who yearns for a normal life (he becomes a drug kingpin to support his mom when she gets released from prison).  On the flip side is Mike Leigh's un-subtitled (though it probably should be) All or Nothing, whose characters have a nice, normal family life but are far too miserable to appreciate it.

Nothing focuses mainly on the Bassett family, who live and/or work in Southeast London.  Well, maybe "live" isn't the right verb – "exist" might be more appropriate.  Phil (Timothy Spall, Vanilla Sky) is the father, a cab driver who is as enthused with his life as I am to see Friday After Next.  He can't drag himself out of bed early enough to take advantage of the morning traffic rush, and often calls the day quits before the evening commute begins.  With a constant hangdog expression reminiscent of an actual Bassett, Phil sleepwalks through life like a man who is wearing someone else's boring existence.

Phil's common-law wife Penny (Lesley Manville from Leigh's Topsy-Turvy) is a bit cheerier but is quickly nearing the end of her rope.  Thanks to Phil's half-assed attempt at employment, Penny has to have her own full-time job down at the Safeway and take care of the cooking, cleaning and ironing.  The Bassett kids aren't much better than their parents.  Pudgy Rachel (Alison Garland), who works a low-level job at a nursing home, is already well on her way to becoming just like her zombie dad.  Rory (James Corden) can barely muster enough energy to make the two-foot journey from his place at the kitchen table to the couch, which is where he spends the entire day (when he isn't suggesting to his mum that she fuck off).

So the Bassetts, who are like The Royle Family on thorazine, are pretty much all alone, even though they're all together.  The few conversations they have are very short and only take place when absolutely necessary.  Nobody is at all connected to one another - at least not until The Big Surprising Thing That Binds Them Together As a Family occurs. They start talking to each other, as well as listening and caring, which unfortunately causes Nothing to completely abandon its numerous subplots involving the Bassetts' neighbors and co-workers.  Those unresolved narratives involve teen pregnancy, alcoholism, physical abuse, one-night stands, self-mutilation, coveting thy neighbor's boyfriend and cock-teasing.  Sad people with sad jobs, sad flats and sad lives.

Nothing seems very heavy-handed for something written and directed by Leigh, though if anyone else made it, I'm not sure I'd say the same thing.  Andrew Dickson's score is painfully melodramatic, to the point I nearly began rooting around the theatre for something to have at my wrists with.  There are a bunch of potential reasons why Nothing is so frigging depressing.  It might reflect the growing sentimentality of an aging Leigh.  It could just have been where his improvisation led him (Leigh never works with a proper script, instead creating the story on the fly with his cast – which makes his two Oscar nominations for Best Screenplay seem awfully funny).  Or perhaps he's mocking the working class in the way Todd Solondz does to the US’s upper-middle class.

Regardless, you can't deny the acting in Nothing is some of the year's best. With Spall and Manville leading the way, Leigh's film is full of memorable performances from top to bottom.  The big scene at the end between Phil and Penny tops anything we saw in last year's bloated In the Bedroom. The only negatives are the forgotten subplots and the almost laughable Carol character, who is kind of an extreme Patsy Stone.

2:08 –

for pervasive language and some sexuality