All or Nothing
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All or Nothing
Plot
After a rather decided departure with his 1999 homage to Gilbert and Sullivan, Topsy-Turvy, Mike Leigh returns to his usual form for All or Nothing, a melancholy look at the day-to-day lives of a dysfunctional lower-middle class British family called the Bassetts. Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville (familiar to fans of Leigh's previous films) star as Phil and Penny, a common-law husband and wife who toil their gloomy days away as a cab-driver and grocery-store cashier, respectively. When the couple come to realize the growing emptiness in their relationship, an unexpected emergency within their family brings them closer together and offers the possibility of reigniting the long-extinguished spark in their marriage. Hoping to repeat the Palm D'or win of Leigh's 1996 film Secrets and Lies, All or Nothing was screened in competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, RoviReview
A stately drama of working-class British lives, Mike Leigh's All or Nothing paints the quiet longing of its characters with such understatement and impassivity that audiences can project anything from faint hope to utter despair onto the canvas. Like Naked, the director's brutal 1993 black comedy, the film sometimes seems to dare viewers to keep their eyes open. Leigh is so intent on depicting the stuff of humanity without prettification that his characters' raw emotions and even their gloriously flawed faces and bodies sometimes seem too fearsome to continue watching. Timothy Spall, a Leigh regular with an increasingly prestigious resumé of other collaborations, leads a uniformly fine cast that also includes the terrific Ruth Sheen and the quietly powerful Lesley Manville -- all actors whose everyday humanity invests their performances with dignity and authority. Composer Andrew Dickson's omnipresent cellos seem to signal a gloomy outcome for their characters, but the film's many workaday epiphanies point to a richer mixture of optimism and regret. The joyful moments are uniformly small and potent: the satisfaction on a woman's careworn face as she belts out a karaoke tune, the thrill of newfound sexual power that lights up an adolescent beauty, the curious understanding between a sad-sack cab driver and a haughty matron, and the anxious solidarity of a family gathered around a sickbed. Despite its hospital-room climax, All or Nothing lacks the crowd-pleasing melodrama of Secrets & Lies, Leigh's 1996 American breakthrough. Nonetheless, the film is almost absurdly representative of the director's distinctive body of work. It may not convince naysayers to join Leigh's extensive fan club, but it offers plenty of quiet power for those who've already joined the fold. ~ Brian J. Dillard, RoviCast
- Timothy Spall - Phil Bassett
- Lesley Manville - Penny Bassett
- Alison Garland - Rachel Bassett
- James Corden - Rory Bassett
- Ruth Sheen - Maureen
Credit
Tom Read - Art Director, Nina Gold - Casting, John Coleman - Conductor, Jacqueline Durran - Costume Designer, Daniel John - First Assistant Director, Josh Robertson - First Assistant Director, Lyndsay Bullock - First Assistant Director, Hannah Titley - First Assistant Director, Lucy Whitton - First Assistant Director, John Sheehan - First Assistant Director, Mike Leigh - Director, Lesley Walker - Editor, Michael Redfern - Editor, Pierre Edelman - Executive Producer, Christine Blundell - Hair Styles, Neil Lee - Location Manager, Georgina Lowe - Line Producer, Andrew Dickson - Composer (Music Score), Step Parikian - Musical Direction/Supervision, Christine Blundell - Makeup, Lesa Warrener - Makeup, Kirstin Chalmers - Makeup, Dick Pope - Camera Operator, Lucy Bristow - Camera Operator, Eve Stewart - Production Designer, Simon Channing-Williams - Producer, Alain Sarde - Producer, Peter Gleaves - Sound Mixer, Malcolm Hirst - Sound Recordist, Lee Sheward - Stunts Coordinator, Steve Mason - Unit Production Manager, Mike Leigh - Screenwriter, Martin Allcock - Musical Performer, Mitch Dalton - Musical Performer, Colin Green - Musical Performer, Bill Hawkes - Musical Performer, Karen Jones - Musical Performer, Helen Keen - Musical Performer, Mary Scully - Musical Performer, Rosemary Warren-Green - Musical Performer, Deborah Reade - Post Production Supervisor, Danielle Brandon - Production Coordinator, Adrian Rhodes - Re-Recording Mixer, Matthew Gough - Re-Recording Mixer, Heather Storr - Script Supervisor, Peter Joly - Supervising Sound Editor, Johnny Littlejohn - Graphic Design, Chris Allies - Title Design| All on Account of a Lie (1910 Film), All on Account of a Letter (1909 Film) | |
| All or Nothing (Film), All or Nothing (2007 Film) |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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All or Nothing (film)
| All or Nothing | |
|---|---|
 All or Nothing Region 2 DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Mike Leigh |
| Produced by | Simon Channing-Williams |
| Written by | Mike Leigh |
| Music by | Andrew Dickson |
| Editing by | Lesley Walker |
| Distributed by | UGC Films United Artists (USA) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
All or Nothing is a 2002 British drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. Typical of Leigh's work, the film is set in present-day London, and revolves around three working-class families and the depiction of their everyday lives. It was well-received by critics and audiences alike, receiving an 83% fresh rating on Rottentomatoes and an average B+ grade on Yahoo! Movies.
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Contents
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Plot summary
The film begins with a day nearing end. Rachel, the daughter in the first family, is shown working in a nursing home. Phil, her father, is shown driving people around in his taxi. Penny, Rachel's mother, is shown working as a cashier at Safeway store alongside Maureen, the mother in the second family. When Penny leaves work, she bikes home to find her eighteen-year-old son Rory in a fight with a local boy for taking his football. Rory is a lazy, obese, ill-mannered teenager who stays home all day and doesn't work. Complications with Rory's obesity arise when after an altercation with a gang of youths playing "Piggy in the Middle", he ultimately runs out of breath, begins to hyperventilate and is hospitalised after suffering a heart attack.
The second family consists of Maureen, another cashier at Safeway, and her daughter Donna, a waitress at a cafe. A brief storyline involves a dispute with Donna's boyfriend, Jason. Donna finds herself pregnant, despite being on the pill, and this leads to a heated argument between the three characters.
The third family consists of Ron, who is a taxi driver along with Phil, his unemployed teenage daughter Samantha, and his wife Carol, an unemployed alcoholic who is always shown intoxicated.
The film does not have one single storyline, but several. All are leading up to the climax, when Rory suffers a heart attack, leading to a relationship crisis in the first family.
Cast
- Timothy Spall as Phil
- Lesley Manville as Penny
- James Corden as Rory
- Alison Garland as Rachel
- Ruth Sheen as Maureen
- Marion Bailey as Carol
- Paul Jesson as Ron
- Sam Kelly as Sid
- Kathryn Hunter as Cécile
- Sally Hawkins as Samantha
- Helen Coker as Donna
- Daniel Mays as Jason
- Ben Crompton as Craig
- Robert Wilfort as Dr. Simon Griffith
- Gary McDonald as Neville
Awards
The film won the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best British Film of the Year, and Mike Leigh was nominated for Best Director at the European Film Awards. The film was also nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.[1]
References
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: All or Nothing". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3152974/year/2002.html. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
External links
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