Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 22-May-05
Spoiler Rating: High

Vera Drake (2004)

In January I reserved the right to edit my 2004 Top Ten list after catching up on a few films including "Vera Drake," and it's a good thing I did. This somber and expertly crafted study of an ordinary woman's extraordinary ordeal is a notable work that speaks volumes without ever raising its voice. Anchored by Imelda Staunton's Oscar-nominated performance, "Vera Drake" tells the true story of a lower-middle-class housemaid whose simple life was shattered after she was arrested for performing an abortion in 1950s London. The first half of the film follows Vera as she goes about doing what she does best, which is mothering her family and everyone else she comes across. She invites a lonely bachelor (Eddie Marsan) to tea (with an eye on her daughter's future), tends to her ancient mother, and drops in on an ailing neighbor, always with a smile on her face and a kind word on her lips. (It occurred to me, rather perversely, that one could make a drinking game out of the number of times Vera offers to fetch a cup or make a fresh pot of tea. But it would only work in the first half.)

Alongside her other acts of charity and duty, Vera performs abortions for poor women who cannot afford a doctor willing to bend the rules for the unfortunate rich (one of whom is presented as a side story for contrast). She views this service, which she provides free of charge, as yet another way to help people in distress. That she knows it's against the law becomes clear midway when the police arrive at her home and ask to speak to her in private (in a scene one isn't likely to forget). Thereafter, the movie takes a gut-wrenching look at how Vera's arrest affects her family, especially her husband (Phil Davis) and son (Daniel Mays), as well as her own sense of self. I kept wishing she would get feisty during her trials or at least use her former cheerfulness to combat her predicament, but I guess that would have been more Hollywood's style than reality's. Instead, being identified as a criminal simply breaks her, and you don't know whether she'll ever recover again.

"Vera Drake" obviously has the potential to be controversial, but it's so anti-sensational and heartbreakingly personal that it demands to be viewed as a story about sad events instead of a tabloid article about a Hot Topic. The main theme is compassion: Vera's caring for others, her family's love for each other, and the difficulty for a social or legal system to handle tricky problems that cannot be treated with rigid logic. (There are only two villains to the piece, women who don't sympathize with anyone and think only of themselves.) If writer/director Mike Leigh is trying to make a point, it's that abortion isn't a black-and-white issue; it requires careful examination and a lot of sensitivity — both of which his movie has in spades.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.