All Or Nothing (2002)

All Or Nothing (2002)

List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $3.46
You Save: $11.52 (77%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details

DVD details

DVD Reviews of All Or Nothing (2002)

DVD Review: Mike Leigh is always interesting
Summary: 4 Stars

The story ostensibly watches the lives of Penny and Phil, moldering in a low-income housing project with individual lives that contain nothing to look forward to and nothing at all to share. Leigh uses some of his favorite actors, the brilliant Lesley Manville (who shone even in the incredibly bright Topsy-Turvy) as Penny, and the most underrated performer around today, Timothy Spall. Penny is a middle-aged mother who is trying to hold up three very heavy lives, and she is crushed by the burden. Bitter and recriminative, she cannot fathom why she has so little. Phil has allowed himself to become an observer to all life, even his own, and in the process finds he too has nothing left. Their two children are fat, lonely, uneducated, and going nowhere. If you knew what was going to happen to you during the day, you wouldn't get up, says Phil. And he doesn't. Until the epiphany that has to save him from the self-destruction rampant around him arrives, and he does indeed start to get up. Like many in the world, Phil is waiting, waiting for salvation to arrive. But only he can create it for himself. And when he does, Penny can join him, and they can look forward with a sense of togetherness.

The actors are all brilliant...Leigh seems incapable of filming a boring performance. James Corden, who was hysterical in the never-seen Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? deserves special mention here. His brooding, angry, wastrel is one of the saddest characters I've ever seen. His life is out of control in every way, and he is overwhelmed by his inability to understand why. He has no language skills but is reduced to swearing and punching, yet hits as ineffectually as he speaks. The lost soul is common in Leigh; but no one is more lost than Rory. But he has a loving family to support him. Now he needs to grab his opportunity and make himself something closer to a person.

Naked was the story of a man who understood language and used it brilliantly, yet still had a miserable life. But those who cannot speak cannot really think, and the lives of those who cannot think do not make good cinema. There is not quite enough in the interiors of these losers to hold this film together. The overall effect, while poignant, carries less weight than Leigh's great films, Topsy-Turvy, Secrets & Lies and Life Is Sweet. While better than nearly everything out there, the weaknesses and inarticulateness of each character cannot carry the story.

Description of All Or Nothing (2002)