“Life is Sweet” is a film that jumpstarted Mike Leigh’s career (as well as as some of the cast members featured in the film) and also a beloved film that is still as refreshing, hilarious and entertaining in 2013 as it was back in 1990. Featuring wonderful performances from Alison Steadman and Jane Horrocks, “Life is Sweet” is one of my favorite Mike Leigh films that I definitely recommend!
Image are courtesy of © 2013 The Criterion Collection. All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Life Is Sweet – The Criterion Collection #659
YEAR OF FILM: 1990
DURATION: 103 Minutes
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, 1:85:1 aspect ratio, 2.0 Surround
COMPANY: THE CRITERION COLLECTION
RELEASE DATE: May 28, 2013
Written and Directed by Mike Leigh
Produced by Simon Channing Williams
Music by Rachel Portman
Cinematography by Dick Pope
Edited by John Gregory
Casting by Sue Whatmough
Production Design by Alison Chitty
Art Direction by Sophie Becher
Costume Design by Lindy Hemming
Starring:
Alison Steadman as Wendy
Jim Broadbent as Andy
Claire Skinner as Natalie
Jane Horrocks as Nicola
Stephen Rea as Patsy
Timothy Spall as Aubrey
This invigorating film from Mike Leigh was his first international sensation. Melancholy and funny by turns, it is an intimate portrait of a working-class family in a suburb just north of London—an irrepressible mum and dad (Alison Steadman and Jim Broadbent) and their night-and-day twins, a bookish good girl and a troubled, ill-tempered layabout (Claire Skinner and Jane Horrocks). Leigh and his typically brilliant cast create, with extraordinary sensitivity and craft, a vivid, lived-in story of ordinary existence, in which even modest dreams—such as the father’s desire to open a food truck—carry enormous weight.
For filmmaker Mike Leigh (“Vera Drake”, “Secrets & Lies”, “Happy-Go-Lucky”), having had a TV directing career from the ’70s through the ’80s and directing the films “Bleak Moments” (1971) and “High Hopes” (1998), it wouldn’t be until in 1990 when the filmmaker would receive international attention for his work.
In this case, it was for his third film “Life is Sweet” (1990) which would star Alison Steadman (“The Life and Death of Peter Sellers”, “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”, “Shirley Valentine”), Jim Broadbent (“Gangs of New York”, “Moulin Rouge!”, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”), Claire Skinner (“Sleepy Hollow”, “Naked”, “Bridget Jones’s Diary”), Jane Horrocks (“Absolutely Fabulous”, “Chicken Run”, “Corpse Bride”, “Little Voice”), Stephen Rea (“V for Vendetta”, “Underworld: Awakening”, “The Crying Game”) and Timothy Spall (“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”).
The film would receive wonderful reviews when it was released in theaters and is one of the few film that has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film would also win several awards in 1992 for “British Film of the Year” at the London Critics Circle and “Best Film”, “Best Actress” and “Best Supporting Actress” at the National Society of Film Critics in the USA, to name a few.
And now, Mike Leigh’s “Life is Sweet” will be released by the Criterion Collection in May 2013.
“Life is Sweet” is a film about a family. Andy (portrayed by Jim Broadbent) is a professional head cook at an industrial kitchen, while his wife Wendy (portrayed by Alison Steadman) works at a baby clothing shop and teaches a dance class to children. Both have two twin daughters who are very different from each other.
Their daughter Natalie (portrayed by Claire Skinner) is a plumber who likes playing pool and drinking with her male co-workers. She is very smart and tends to be more caring towards her parents, unlike her sister Nicola.
Nicola (portrayed by Jane Horrocks) is unemployed, bulimic, very thin, a heavy smoker and always critical and patronizing. She is very blunt with her emotions especially towards her parents and does not like to eat by anyone. She also has a locked trunk where she hides junk food, but while she binge eats, she throws it all up afterward.
While the family tries to live happily, Wendy is concerned about her daughter Nicola, while also worried about her husband, who recently bought a food truck from their friend Patsy (portrayed by Stephen Rhea), who the family thinks is conning Andy.
Meanwhile, their unusual friend Aubrey (portrayed by Timothy Spall), has a thing for both Wendy and Nicola and is opening a restaurant “The Regret Rien” which serves interesting types of cuisine. Often nervous and destroying things, Wendy begins working at Aubrey’s restaurant.
But deep inside, what appears to be family living behind the confines of an “OK” facade, Wendy knows the family is not OK and one of these days, these emotions that she has bottled inside, will soon come out.
VIDEO:
“Life is Sweet” is presented in 1080p High Definition (1:85:1 aspect ratio). For a film that is nearly 25-years-old, picture quality is fantastic. None of the ’90s softness that we see on other Blu-rays, nor do you see the blur details that were evident in the 2002 DVD. There is very good detail when it comes to character close-ups, colors look natural and there is a fine layer of grain. I also saw no problems with white specks or aliasing problems. The film looks fantastic on Blu-ray!
According to the Criterion Collection, “Supervised by director of photography Dick Pope, this new digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the original camera negative. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, and jitter were manually removed using MTI’s DRS and Pixel Farm’s PFClean, while Image Systems’ Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, noise reduction, and flicker.”
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Life is Sweet” is presented in English DTS-HD Master Audio. Dialogue is crisp and clear and I detected no hiss, crackle or any problematic issues with audio.
According to the Criterion Collection, “The original 2.0 surround soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the original magnetic recordings. Clicks, thumps, hiss and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube’s integrated workstation.”.
Criterion Collection also included the note to “please be sure to enable Dolby Pro Logic decoding on your receiver to properly play the Dolby 2.0 surround soundtrack”.
Subtitles are in English.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Life is Sweet†comes with the following special features:
- Audio Commentary – Featuring an exclusive Criterion Collection 2013 audio commentary by Director Mike Leigh.
- Mike Leigh at the National Film Theater – (1:00:56) An hour long audio Recording of 1991 Interview with Mike Leigh at the National Film Theatre in London who discusses “Life is Sweet” and the challenges he faced in making the film.
- Five Minute Films – Featuring five short five-minute films (“Probation”, “The Birth of the Goalie of the 2001 F.A. Cup Final”, “Old Chums”, “A Light Snack” and “Afternoon”) directed by Mike Leigh in 1975 for BBC Television. Also includes an introduction from Mike Leigh.
EXTRAS:
“Life is Sweet†comes with a 20-page booklet which includes the essay “Life is Bitter-Sweet†by David Sterritt (critic at Film Quarterly and film producer at Columbia University and Maryland Institute College of Art).
For those who had the opportunity to watch “Life is Sweet” back in 1990, what was captivating about the film was its portrayal of British family, but how this family interacts with each other and how each of them behave.
While you the mother Wendy trying to run the house but yet not phased by her daughter’s style of verbal communication, the problem with the family is the confrontation of problems that her daughters are facing.
Possibly one of the most unique and fascinating characters I have seen in a British film is Nicola (portrayed by Jane Horrocks). She’s mad about the world for some reason. People are sexist, racist, something with an “-ist” but she’s also a teenage girl that is suffering from bulimia and there is some discord with her and the family. She has a boyfriend but her sense of intimacy is doing things that involve her boyfriend eating chocolate spread on her body (or is it “Nutella”, not so sure) which tends to gross him out. He wants to have an emotional connection, to have conversations with her but she calls him a “sentimentalist”.
Obviously there is a problem with Nicola and her mother knows it, it’s just that she doesn’t know why she can’t reach her or why she’s become the way she is.
Her twin sister Natalie is the opposite, she is supportive of the family, she is laid back and rarely angry. She likes working as a plumber, hanging out with the guys and wants to travel the world and visit the United States.
Then you add several odd supporting characters. Patsy is a con man always trying to get his friend Andy to buy something, while Aubrey is the epitome of creepy friend who likes Wendy (and possibly her daughter Nicola) and is starting up a restaurant with food that no one is probably going to eat (such as pork cysts and duck in chocolate sauce) but yet not doing anything to promote it. He obviously has anger issues and tends to release his anger via playing drums or just wrecking things around him. But it’s that creepy vibe that makes him think in his mind that he is a man of good taste and knows about romance.
So, the charm of the film lies within its characters and how they are portrayed because you have not seen anything like it in a film before.
Yes, there are films about dysfunctional families but in the case of “Life is Sweet”, it’s about being real and the spontaneity of the dialogue. One is not going to figure out how this film will end, what will happen or if anything, what the plot is about. It’s a film about a British family that seem like normal people. Parents trying to make a living to take care of their children, children who live with their parents but know it’s time to venture out into the world and some facing inner demons for some reason.
There is no reason to explain why this person is a certain way, what the viewer is seeing is regular people living their lives but because of how the parents try to handle life with humor, one daughter lives life casually and lack of excitement, while another is just plain, mad at the word and has some major issues that only her twin sister knows about.
But the film is significant in the oeuvre of Mike Leigh’s film career for jumpstarting his career and receiving the international recognition. “Life is Sweet” is deserving of its attention because films like this are quite rare.
While his films have gotten darker later on, what I enjoy about Mike Leigh films is his cool and non-traditional approach to movie making. Some of his films benefits from the talent just becoming as one with their character and the fact that the actors themselves didn’t know what they were getting into, you get a unique style of film that may not have a major plot per se, but it’s more of one’s attitude and reacting to what is happening “now”.
This hilarious but yet entertaining style of Leigh was also evident in his 2008 film “Happy-Go-Lucky” which I also enjoyed but it’s the characters and the performances on “Life is Sweet” by Alison Steadman, Jim Broadbent, Claire Skinner, Jane Horrocks and Timothy Spall that makes this film one of my favorites from Leigh and a film I never grow tired of watching.
The Criterion Collection Blu-ray release of “Life is Sweet” definitely looks better than the original DVD release when it comes to detail but also clarity. None of the ’90s softness is seen on this Criterion Collection release. Colors and overall picture quality is good. And it’s 2.0 lossless soundtrack has no problems with hiss or pops or anything negative to mention, dialogue and music are clear. For special features, you get an audio commentary, a one-hour audio from the past as Leigh talks about the making of the film and his career as a filmmaker. And you get five of his five minute films from 1975.
Overall, “Life is Sweet” is a film that jumpstarted Mike Leigh’s career (as well as as some of the cast members featured in the film) and also a beloved film that is still as refreshing, hilarious and entertaining in 2013 as it was back in 1990.
Recommended!
