Beginning his work behind the camera on televised plays for the BBC, such as the iconic uncomfortable chamber piece ‘Abigail’s Party’ starring Alison Steadman, from the beginning Leigh was a proponent of many months of intensive, theatre-style rehearsals with his his actors in an effort to discover the truth of their characters.

The “Leigh Method” is often so convincing that viewers mistakenly believe his films to be all or partially improvised, when in fact they couldn’t be more carefully choreographed affairs. His actors tend to live as their characters for months before filming so that their every line and direction provided by Leigh feels natural and authentic, even instinctual to them, his ultimate aim being to always create “emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films”.

Leigh’s regular collaborators, who always benefit from his working method, include Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent, Leslie Manville, Philip Davis, Sally Hawkins and Ruth Sheen, as well as his late producer Simon Channing-Williams (co-founder of Leigh’s Thin Man Films) and cinematographer Dick Pope.

Over five decades and fourteen features, Leigh has crafted contemporary kitchen sink dramas, relevant critiques of traditional gender roles, and hard-hitting psychological studies, as well as delving deep into Britain’s far-from-rosy past. He has also been a champion of the arts and of truly independent art at that, never compromising his vision or his chosen way of working even if it limits his more mainstream and commercial success.

But where should you start with this multi-award winner and recipient of the BAFTA fellowship? There’s probably no wrong place to begin here, but there are undoubtedly more harrowing entries in his filmography that should probably be gradually built up to. As one possible route of entry, we offer this recommendation on Where to Start with Mike Leigh.

1. Secrets & Lies (1996)

Mike Leigh’s films often seem to have dropped you right in the middle of an everyday domestic scene that is already unfolding, but the plot of Secrets & Lies, while always feeling completely truthful, is anything but everyday.

Secrets & Lies follows Hortense (Marianne John-Baptiste), a black British optician who is attempting to track down her birth mother who gave her up for adoption as a baby. Surprisingly, her mother turns out to be the white factory worker Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), and the two begin meeting in secret before Hortense is introduced to the rest of Cynthia’s dysfunctional family at a birthday barbecue for her other daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook) and perhaps inevitably a very difficult conversation comes around.

Everyone in a Mike Leigh film feels like they’ve lived a full life before we’ve joined them, a life that will continue on as normal long after we leave. The impressive ensemble of Secrets & Lies all have their stories, their hangups, their myriad personal issues to confront. Hortense just wants to know where she came from; Cynthia wonders what might have been if she hadn’t had her first child unplanned as a teenager; Roxanne struggles to connect with her mother and open up about her own relationships; Cynthia’s brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) and sister-in-law Monica (Phyllis Logan) are, respectively, an ineffectual doormat and a passive-aggressive depressive. 

The two centrepiece sequences of the film, Hortense and Cynthia’s first soul-bearing face-to-face meeting in a café and later the barbecue where everything comes out in the open and emotions boil over, are among the most memorable in British independent cinema. The personality clashes are explosive and the emotions raw and painful, but there are funny moments as well, and none of the drama ever feels manufactured, anything less than a spontaneous. This is a natural and ugly representation of humanity at our best and worst. 

Secrets & Lies is Leigh’s tribute to modern British families whatever shape they take, warts and all, and it has only become more affecting over time as the view of what a “normal” family is has become less easy to define, the film surpassing its BAFTA wins and Oscar Nominations to become a popular favourite especially among those who feel like they’ve never quite belonged.

2. Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Most of Mike Leigh’s period dramas are excellent, but Topsy-Turvy is undoubtedly his least bleak and upsetting trip into the past, balancing the same meticulous attention to detail of Mr Turner or Vera Drake with infectious energy and humour that those films often understandably lack. 

An ambitious biopic of W.S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) and Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner), Topsy-Turvy focuses on 1884-1885 and the lead-up to the premiere of one of their most ambitious and troubled collaborations, “The Mikado”. The lucrative and critically successful creative partnership, with Gilbert providing lyrics and Sullivan composing their operas, had began to falter by this point in their careers and both men clearly had very different priorities in life and in art.

Set during the period of Victorian England’s fascination with all things Japanese following the East Asian country’s opening up to trade with the West, the film presents many uncomfortable attitudes to Japan and its culture. Yes, it’s deeply upsetting to see Jim Broadbent squinting his eyes and swinging a katana around in his dressing gown, Andy Serkis as a flamboyant, pipe-smoking choreographer trying to teach the women in the cast to move like Japanese ladies, and the exaggerated application of makeup employed to make British actors look Japanese on stage, but it is authentic to the time and place and adds to the tactile richness of the production design in general. 

None of the ensemble cast playing opera stars (including Timothy Spall, Kevin McKidd and Shirley Henderson) are professionals in the style, but they do a remarkably convincing job of it, especially considering that many of their own vocals are used in the final film. They also all, but especially Broadbent and Corduner, flesh out their troubled artists’ professional and personal lives, and the runtime just shy of 3 hours gives every character and subplot room to breathe while never threatening to lose your interest by peppering the story with plenty of entertaining backstage drama. 

With Topsy-Turvy, Leigh deconstructs two icons of English culture, bringing them down to the level of mere mortals, and explores how much passion and creativity, but also petty squabbles and selfishness, goes into making the most lasting pieces of art.

3. Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

About the closest Mike Leigh has come to a truly feel-good movie (though this still has more than a few shades of darkness), comedy-drama Happy-Go-Lucky is a great way to ease yourself into the British director’s oeuvre.

Happy-Go-Lucky is the story of Poppy (Sally Hawkins), an endlessly cheery primary school teacher going through life powered by her friendships and an unshakeable positive outlook on the world, no matter who she encounters or who may want to stamp it out.

While she had been seen on TV and had supporting roles in Leigh’s All or Nothing and Vera Drake, it was Happy-Go-Lucky that catapulted would-be Oscar and BAFTA nominee Hawkins into the limelight, and for good reason. You have to wonder how many real people’s lives Hawkins brightened in the months she was living as Poppy in London, though you also find yourself thinking that while she’d be a great person to know, you may perhaps avoid seeing her every day in order to avoid exhaustion.

We accompany Poppy on a series of experiences, from supporting bullied kids at school to finding time for her love and social life and flamenco dance classes, but the most memorable moments in the film by far are Poppy’s driving lessons taught by the volatile Scott (Eddie Marsan) – every scene they share together is even more tense than the last. Scott the driving instructor is a frankly terrifying creation who starts out seemingly just short-tempered and more than a little obsessive when it comes to Poppy’s short attention span and inappropriate footwear, but is gradually revealed to be a full-blown conspiracy theorist with an assortment of deep-rooted issues.

It’s here in particular that we really see how special Poppy is, that she shows empathy to everyone she encounters in life no matter how she is treated in return, and while anyone can make cheery small talk in a shop or show kindness to a homeless man, she can so easily switch modes from her joker default to showing genuine concern for Scott, a clearly disturbed man in need of help, even after she has been at the end of a tirade of verbal and physical assault.

Happy-Go-Lucky gives you a little hope in a world that sometimes seems to contain very little and lets you in on a snapshot of the complex personal stories of the everyday people you pass in the street. Occasionally, someone telling you to “Smile, it might never happen” really does come from a good place, and everyone could probably do with a Poppy in their lives… in small doses. 

Recommended for you: Where to Start with the Cinema of Peter Cushing

Mike Leigh is one of the most vivid and authentic UK filmmakers of the last fifty years, and just about every one of his feature films and work in the theatre and television are worth experiencing. Beyond the three suggestions above, Naked, Life is Sweet and Mr Turner in particular are worth your commitment, as hard as they are at times to watch. Sharing an equal role with his actors in creating real and memorable characters, and capturing the mundane with a beautiful eye, Mike Leigh holds a mirror up to British society from across the decades, and celebrates and lambastes in equal measure who we are and more importantly, why we are.

Wrath of Man (2021)
Director: Guy Ritchie
Screenwriter: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Jason Statham, Holt McCallany, Josh Hartnett, Scott Eastwood, Jeffrey Donovan, Laz Alonso, Post Malone, Eddie Marsan, Andy Garcia

Guy Ritchie is a filmmaker who lives and dies by his own writing. 

When he’s firing on all cylinders, when his writing is punchy and verbose and particularly fun to lean into, he’s one of the best directors working today. When he’s not, when his writing is performatively masculine and acutely focused on male camaraderie over all else, he’s serviceable if completely unremarkable, the resulting film lacking in much energy or panache. Wrath of Man is such a film, a fine-as-Walmart-wine crime picture that gets by on a couple of thrilling heist sequences, tricky time-release editing, and Jason Statham’s glum, intimidating presence. 

Aladdin was a kitschy disaster, but Ritchie followed it with The Gentlemen, his best offering since the cult classic Snatch. The Gentlemen was filled to the brim with delectable performances, scenery-chewing monologues, and atmosphere to spare. For the most part, Wrath of Man has none of that. Instead, its vast supporting cast is mostly wasted, and Ritchie’s patented dialogue is reduced to jocular ribbing and dull, unrepeatable one-liners. Holt McCallany, so good under the gaze of David Fincher in ‘Mindhunter’, delivers a pretty disappointing performance here as a duplicitous armored truck dealer, unable to add layers to a script that offers very little in the way of personalities, if often leaving room for committed players to elevate the material. Either the cast wasn’t committed or they lack the ability for such a task. From Jeffrey Donovan to Scott Eastwood, Laz Alonso to Josh Hartnett, they’re often relegated to reading ill-suited dialogue like they’re, well, reading it. Only the ever-reliable Eddie Marsan, Andy Garcia, and Statham himself come through, though the latter is essentially fulfilling his contractual obligation for unending stoicism. Post Malone appears once again as a hood rat thief, for some reason choosing to make an acting career out of throwaway cameos in trashy crime pictures. 

Wrath of Man manages to be mildly entertaining in spite of itself. The wily structure will keep any audience on its toes, tying together two genres (revenge and heist) for the purpose of revealing what drives Statham’s character as he infiltrates the aforementioned truck company. He’s a professional criminal of the organized sort moonlighting as an armored truck driver for reasons unknown, until Ritchie’s twisty narrative brings it all to light. However, so little time is spent on the past that the present is barely illuminated. Statham’s character still remains a mystery regardless of what vengeance he’s after. That’s what happens when you hire an actor like Statham, a performer of immense physicality but limited expressability. Fortunately, action sequences are juiced up via said physicality. Whether strangling an enemy with his own kevlar vest or firing precise headshots in quick succession, as if he were the best sharp-shooter on Earth, Statham’s action movie bonafides do some heavy legwork in telling us who this guy is at the outset. 

What ultimately sinks the film on occasion are the vague sketches that pass for characters. Unlike The Gentlemen’s plethora of juicy roles, Wrath of Man is riddled with people who should mean something, yet never amount to anything. The partner and friend (McCallany) who’s not all that he seems? When it’s found out what he’s about, there’s not much to it, motivationally speaking. Sweat Boy Dave (Hartnett), the loudmouth who’s more so a wimp? Expectations are the enemy of joy at times, and such is the case if anyone were to enter Wrath of Man believing this film would be some kind of return to fame and fortune for Hartnett. When the supposedly reluctant killers – those taking armored truck after armored truck in a slew of disguises – start killing indiscriminately, there’s no reason given for the sudden change in tactics or moral compass. Because the job is bigger, the willingness to kill is stronger? These sorts of moral quandaries are given short shrift, if any shrift at all. The mastermind, the wild card, the brains of the operation, all known types and tropes are here at play, and they remain types, given less screen time than you’d imagine for who end up being the picture’s primary villains. 

Wrath of Man often feels as if it was written by a man in his early twenties, who hasn’t yet matured emotionally or intellectually and, thus, finds depth in a pretty rote revenge story, one overly preoccupied with men being men. That would be wonderful if those men being men told us something about men, or if Ritchie recognized he was telling a story about the pitfalls of pride instead of asking his audience to simply join him on one violent ride down genre memory lane. Statham’s screen presence and the filmmaker’s admittedly unique camera placement during heist scenes make this an occasionally worthwhile endeavor, if a significant step down from his previous outing. 

15/24

Written by Tony Ruggio

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The World’s End (2013)
Director: Edgar Wright
Screenwriters: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, David Bradley

2013’s The World’s End has been cited by some fans as the most disappointing entry in the Cornetto Trilogy despite a positive reception from critics who welcomed it just as favourably as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Coming 6 years after the trilogy’s middle entry, The World’s End acts as the culmination of the miniature series of Pegg, Frost and Wright collaborations, offering yet more reoccurring gags and winks for fans, with plenty for new new viewers to digest. It recounts a quintet of school friends, led by Simon Pegg’s Gary King, as they attempt to finish a pub crawl known as The Golden Mile they had attempted some twenty-plus years prior, encountering some otherworldly obstacles en-route.

One of the film’s major strengths is the way in which it flips the leading roles of the two previous films on their head. On this occasion Nick Frost plays the uptight, professional and reluctant straight-man to Pegg’s man-child, the latter firmly longing for his adolescent years. This change in roles does little to nullify the chemistry of the two leads who, by this point, are so in tune that they hit every single mark and establish a relateable leading duo even after 6 years apart. Martin Freeman as Oliver is also cast against type as a stone faced estate agent, a far cry from his roles as Bilbo in The Hobbit and Tim in ‘The Office’. The other two members of the central quintet are famed British talent Paddy Considine (who of course featured in Hot Fuzz) and Cornetto newcomer Eddie Marsan (Filth).

As with the two previous entries in the Cornetto Trilogy, there is an assortment of guest stars including standouts Pierce Brosnan, Rosamund Pike and David Bradley, with a further selection of familiar faces strewn across the 12 pubs visited, including (as always) some of the cast of Wright and Pegg’s cult TV sitcom ‘Spaced’.

The 6 year gap between the films, which saw Pegg and Wright establish themselves as some of Hollywood’s go-to filmmakers on the likes of Star Trek and Mission: Impossible (Pegg), and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Wright), was one of the major drawbacks for The World’s End at launch as it led expectations to be at a high level amongst fans. It is difficult to note whether the gap (in terms of time and expectation) affected the film’s box office haul, which was just over half of what Hot Fuzz made, but in terms of audience reception there must be some consideration made towards the high levels of expectation the duo brought with them into this film.

As was the case with the previous Cornetto movies, The World’s End once again treated us to some inventive action sequences, including the trademarked pub fight. The standout here was perhaps the brawl in the pub toilet, which proved to be imaginative and enthralling, and nicely contrasted the style of action seen in Hot Fuzz.

Thematically, The World’s End has plenty to say and is without question the most sobering of the Cornetto films. It offers commentary on the “Starbucking” of UK towns as many of Newton Haven’s pubs have been bought out by chains and have lost their unique qualities, with a recurring comment being whether it is our quintet or their childhood town that has changed the most. Another of the main themes is letting go of the past and any disappointment one might feel about how life has turned out, Gary commenting that his life was never as good as the night they first attempted the Golden Mile. The film also offers insight into life in a small town and the nature of a lads’ night out. Meanwhile, the surprising addition of an alien invasion thread proves to be satisfying and gives the premise a welcome breath of fresh air.

A great soundtrack is one of the hallmarks of the whole trilogy and music plays arguably its most prominent role in its finale. A particular emphasis is placed on 90s Britpop which reflects the group’s at-the-time burgeoning adulthood with tracks from the likes of The Stone Roses, Pulp and The Happy Mondays. In keeping with the pub crawl theme, several of the tracks including The Doors’ “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)” and The Housemartins’ “Happy Hour” are nods to the film’s alcohol-fueled plot-line.

The World’s End does, overall, round the trilogy off in fine fashion. It is more of a slow burner than its two predecessors, building suspense and a sense that something is not quite right with the residents of Newton Haven, the audience and characters alike being teased for longer than before, and the slow build isn’t to everyone’s taste, but the contrasts to the previous entries tonally and character- wise bring added depth and ensure the film never feels formulaic or repetitive. In The World’s End, we are offered more of a varied glimpse at the acting chops of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as well as some strong support from the core cast. Perhaps the film will be viewed in a more positive light in the years to come and step out of the shadow of its two siblings to take on a life of its own, but for now it remains an underappreciated entry into the canon of the Cornetto films and Edgar Wright’s wider filmography.

Score: 17/24

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)
Director: Andy Serkis
Screenwriter: Callie Kloves
Starring: Rohan Chand, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Naomie Harris, Andy Serkis, Peter Mullan, Jack Reynor, Eddie Marsan, Tom Hollander, Matthew Rhys, Freida Pinto

Andy Serkis’ darker take on the story of “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling was sold by Warner Bros. to Netflix as a result of a protracted production phase that began all the way back in 2015 and the studio’s belief that audiences would have little appetite for the story after Disney’s huge success with their musically inspired cartoon remake The Jungle Book in 2016. Judging by what was on offer in Mowgli, they had every right to be doubtful of its credentials.

Serkis’ more adult take on the classic story was one he insists was always intended for a PG-13 (12A) rating, the deal with Netflix allowing for him to pursue the more adult themes of the non-PG landscape due to the company’s lack of interest in a box office run, but Mowgli was ultimately left stuck in the middle of the two ideals: it was too young for old audiences and too old for young audiences. Unlike the Disney remake, the magic of a film aimed at children was absent from Mowgli, while it simply wasn’t established or mature enough to truly hit home with adults.

Legend of the Jungle ironically felt rushed from a production standpoint, the editing being some of the most frustrating in all of Netflix’s releases this year, the story failing to connect in some of its most intense or intimate of moments due to the movie’s lack of an identifiable pace and an apparent absence of the ability to maintain themes and emotions between sequences at many key stages.

The editors seemed to have a hard job on their hands however, with the script being unexpectedly drab and cliche-ridden. It took nearly 40 minutes of montages and training sequences to truly grab a hold of any meaningful character connections or a reason to care about the movie beyond that of its truly outstanding motion capture work, the film to that point seeming like a random collection of events the filmmakers seemingly intended us to care about without ever giving us a reason to. As a result, connections seemed forced and the more deep-rooted moments of conflict from the novel seemed slapped on top rather than firmly established, and while the editing certainly didn’t help in this regard (it suffered from the same needless slow-motion as Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010), for example – quite a damning comparison), it seemed quite clear that the production itself was also left wanting many a time.

In this respect, the dialogue in Mowgli was almost astonishingly reductive, with the words spoken by the lead character seeming like something out of a piece of your most cliched classical poetry rather than anything remotely realistic or identifiable, something the film at no point established through a well-read or philosophical mother or father figure from whom Mowgli could learn such expressions. There were moments in the film where the dialogue of the lead was so utterly out of the actor’s age range that you could almost hear the collective groans of those watching the movie at home. We get it Mr. Serkis, the child has never felt a part of his pack. His saying so as if reading a letter addressed to the Queen is hardly necessary, nor were the mountains of other expository lines that made up seemingly three quarters of the entire film.

In contrast, from a visual standpoint Mowgli promised a lot and, in many ways, it delivered. The motion capture work for the mammals of the piece in particular was phenomenal, the texture of their fur and whiskers being some of the best put to screen by means of this technique yet. By far the most impressive aspect of this was how the eyes of the creatures radiated life, something the film cleverly highlighted on multiple occasions through the presentation of good versus evil through a ‘hunting to kill versus hunting to eat’ metaphor. With the strong narrative motivation of showing the audience how Mowgli was taught the difference between good and bad by his mentor figures, this highlighting felt natural and all the more powerful as a result, but sadly it was one of the very few aspects of the picture that truly astonished.

Unfortunately, for all of the great technical achievements in the motion capture of the animals, the sets of Mowgli felt cheap and insincere. Despite filling the frames with life, the sets themselves felt almost entirely absent of it, their soap opera lighting almost shouting “sound stage” out of the screen. It’s understandable from a business and humane perspective why they wouldn’t want a small child running through a rain-soaked jungle, the crew in tow, but films like this are about achieving the illusion of reality and therefore encouraging you to suspend your disbelief, and in this respect (as with the editing and dialogue) Mowgli failed. It simply lacked the authenticity or the beauty to inspire awe.

The score worked in much the same way as the visuals, much of its effect being decimated by the stop-start sensitivity of the piece, the above average work of Nitin Sawhney drifting between the genuinely affecting and something closer to soap opera, never quite finding its feet amongst the CG leaves of the forest floor.

By the same token, the acting of the piece offered mixed messages with the central cast of motion capture voice artists – especially Christian Bale as Bagheera and Cate Blanchett as Kaa – being utterly fantastic, while the work of Rohan Chand in the central role took a lot of getting used to as it fluctuated between genuinely convincing and quite clearly read expression (though much of that was the fault of the dialogue written for him).

For a film that asked its audience to take it seriously and bring different expectations to it than the 2016 Jungle Book movie, Mowgli genuinely didn’t deliver in many storytelling or production aspects compared to its Disney branded brethren, which when combined with a sincere lack of fun and an ever-shifting tone, made for a much more tedious viewing experience.

Mowgli is hardly the critical hit Netflix had been hoping for when they dedicated millions of dollars to an Oscar campaign, but be sure to look out for it in the visual effects category come February. Big cats, wolves and bears aside, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is a mess of a movie stitched together with great trepidation in a very poor edit, a huge swing and a miss for Serkis and Netflix that never quite found its tone, fleshed out its themes or worked out which audiences it was intended for.

9/24

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The story starts with an annoyed young Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) who struggles at school and dreams of a better future as an actor. He comes across Orson Welles by chance and his life seems suddenly to be changing for the better as he lands a small role in Welles’s production of Julius Ceasar. At the Mercury Theatre he also meets the young Sonja Jones (Clare Danes) a production assistant, and struck by her beauty, he falls in love with her.

Another important encounter for Richard is the lovely Gretta Adler (Zoe Kazan) a wannabe writer whose life is still uncertain: she’s sure she wants to be a writer one day but she’s still waiting for her big break. The two share a brief moment together and we are left hanging and wondering if they’ll ever see each other again.

The story evolves and the characters change during their journeys. Richard will eventually understand what’s really important and what love is like in real life. Christian McKay plays Orson Welles brilliantly; he was nominated for a BAFTA in 2010 as Best Supporting Actor for his role and I wasn’t surprised to read that. He was the best actor in the film, along with some other secondary actors such as Eddie Marsan, Ben Chaplin, Leo Bill, James Tupper and Kelly Reilly. I must say the main cast didn’t stand out; Claire Danes wasn’t really convincing in the femme fatale role (her character was nicknamed ‘The Ice Queen’) and surely she was better in her other roles. As for Zach Efron, I’ve never thought highly of him as an actor and in this instance I found his performance shoddy, flat and boring.

There are some good and enjoyable scenes though, such as the dialogue between Orson and Richard about what defines a ‘God created actor’according to Orson and I think that moment might really inspire who wants to become one – Orson’s words are quite harsh on the matter.

I sensed that the scenes where Gretta and Richard talk were one of the most important in the film as well, because they showed some kind of immediate connection between the two and their mutual understanding. That was also emphasised by the camera shots – the final shot for example was very meaningful – but I can’t say anymore otherwise I think I might spoil the film for you. That being said, I feel that the truly redeeming feature of the film was the message behind it and above all Christian McKay’s performance. I found Orson Welles’s figure really fascinating and well portrayed. He was indeed a genius but so complicated and tormented, a difficult man to deal with, that only McKay could have portrayed so greatly. Moreover, the soundtrack was appropriate to the time in which the story was set (1937) and I personally very much enjoy the music from that era, so that was definitely a plus for me.

Overall it wasn’t a completely bad film, it’s a lovely film if you’re interested in Orson Welles and therefore curious about how he was portrayed on screen.

One last thing: get ready for Orson’s sly move near the end, you won’t see it coming.

14/24