A drama set in present-day London in which a supermarket checkout girl named Penny begins to fall out of love with her taxi-driver boyfriend, Phil. Their daughter Rachel cleans in a home for elderly people, and their son Rory is unemployed and aggressive. The joy has gone out of Phil's and Penny's life, but when an unexpected tragedy occurs, they are brought together to rediscover their love.
For close to two hours the audience is forced to endure three terminally depressed, mostly inarticulate, hyper dysfunctional families for the price of one.
Leigh makes these lives count. And he allows a gawky actor like Spall -- who could too easily become comic relief in any other film -- to reveal his impressively delicate range.
It is almost impossible to sludge through this tiny morality tale and not recognize bad habits, small and familiar, that we all share -- and also take for granted.
There's no denying the downbeat nature of All or Nothing -- it's not a frivolous night at the movies. But the story of Phil and Penny wins you with its heart.
Gone has Mike Leigh's usual signature humour here but at All or Nothing's core is his usual basic message that no matter how bleak or desperate life can be, simple acts of kindness and love, can still flourish above everything else, although it's not as slushy or as Hollywood as that sounds. Mike Leigh's films tend to
have the same tone, many don't like it but I just can't get enough. My only criticism of this film is that of the casting of James Corden. Considering he played a fat useless and rather unlikeable character it is actually very good casting I suppose (I wonder if he was acting?), I just can't stand him and so it wasn't necessarily as enjoyable as most of Leigh's films are for me. Damn you James Corden!
Grim but genuine study of a struggling working class family and their world on a London estate. Particularly disturbing is the feeling each successive generation is doomed to repeat the mistakes of their parents.
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