Almost There: Lesley Manville in "Another Year"
Tuesday, November 15, 2022 at 9:30PM 
With The Crown's fifth season comes a new opportunity for the world to bask in the glory of Lesley Manville. As Princess Margaret, she's a charismatic scene-stealer, indulging in all the melodrama thrown at her whilst brandishing a cigarette holder like a conductor's baton. Though a fair share of high-class glamour characterizes both her new Netflix gig and the role that earned her an Oscar nomination, that's not always the register within which Manville moves. You could even argue that she built her career on playing the opposite sort of people, working-class characters like the titular Mrs. Harris in this year's Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris – another outstanding performance.
Another example is Mary in Mike Leigh's Another Year. Prior to Phantom Thread, that 2010 drama surely marked the closest the actress had ever come to Oscar gold…
As its title suggests, Another Year concerns four seasons in the lives of ordinary people, just another year among many. Putatively, the film means to observe the quotidian existence of Tom and Gerri, a geologist and a therapist who split their days between professional responsibilities, their tending to a humble little community garden, and the network of people made up of friends and family. These latter individuals could be said to be the true focus of Another Year, whose construction posits the funnily-named marrieds as the calm center around which a hurricane of clashing personalities revolves. Though many such figures pop up, a special quartet emerges from the crowd.
There's their adult son Joe, newly engaged to a happy-go-lucky woman. There's Ken, a childhood friend lost in his sad-sack ways. There's Ronnie, Tom's brother, and the person who most quietly accepts the passage of time, being neither as forcible optimist as his close family nor as loudly miserable as everyone else. Finally, there's Lesley Manville's Mary, whom we first meet at the health center where she and Gerri work. Right away, one's startled at the sheer movement the actress brings to the screen, polluting every gesture with a slurry of aborted tics and random jitters. Like many a Mike Leigh heroine, she can be a bit too much, abrasive in her eccentricity, and shocking in the ways of performance style.
But, of course, too much can be just right within specific circumstances. Another Year sets up those parameters, initially philtering Mary's exuberance through the eyes of her two friends who, despite good intentions and a general air of sensitivity, might not be as perceptive or kind as they'd like to think. As if to underline this point, Leigh's camera lingers on Mary busying away behind her work computer, observing her anxiety after Gerri's calm is no longer in the frame to provide contrast. This day-drunk divorcée can be a humorous bit of chaos when with others. However, sadder truths emerge if you look past that and regard her in the loneliness of her own company.
It's not that Manville quiets down her portrait but that she and the camera work to reveal different sides of the same behavior. As the coworkers move from the office to the pub, one witnesses the repetition of the same structure, with Manville sucking in all of the scene's oxygen when she's sharing it with Ruth Sheen. As soon as the other woman departs, all the exaggerated acting implodes into a devastating close-up. The silence gains a frightening quality, making us keenly aware of how Mary's incessant chatter isn't so much a show of social dominance or self-centeredness as a desperate attempt at keeping the quiet away. If she keeps on yammering, even if Gerri never responds with anything but subtly sardonic observations, the dead air feels full rather than empty.
It's a push-and-pull that gets reinforced with each new scene, like an escalation of annoying habits falling into a pit of despondence just as everyone looks away. Well, everyone but Leigh's probing gaze, the camera surprisingly more empathetic than the characters who wear kindness like a costume. Every time I re-watch Another Year, Tom and Gerri's cheery treatment of Mary grates increasingly, every smile and private aside dripping with judgment, light-hearted condescension. One wonders if the alcoholic woman is aware of this. At a springtime dinner with her two chums, Manville plays up obliviousness, a messy drunk getting lectured and being seemingly okay with all that. She's the butt of many mean jokes left unspoken, but does she know it?
Hints of self-awareness shine through here and there, an instant of genuine concern, a shot of unconditional kindness bubbling up from a bog of booziness. Such details make the overall portrait feel authentic in spite of how obnoxious it can be, a screen presence that's like the metaphorical bull in a china shop. As irritating as putting up with Mary might be, both for her on-screen and off-screen audience, Manville makes sure she feels real. Maybe she's too real, too uncomfortable in the ability to capture a particular type of needy personality beseeched by constant, vocally expressed self-pity. This is never more apparent than when she turns apologetic in the cold light of morning, negotiating remorse towards Tom and Gerri with the temptation to flirt with the newly arrived Joe.
Spring dies like all things are bound to, giving way to summer and its sunny get-togethers. In an attempt to redirect Mary's infatuation away from their son or to make her happy, Tom and Gerri seem eager to matchmake Ken and her during a little barbecue party they throw among friends. Mary, for her part, is decidedly uninterested in anyone but Joe, the flow of summer wine plying out whatever philter she might have once possessed. The flirting gets worse, and the rejection of an age-appropriate match reeks of cruelty. Manville plays this latter action with a tenor of recognition, almost as if Mary saw herself reflected in Ken and instinctually repudiated what she saw. It's an exercise in self-delusion and self-hatred externalized through character interaction.
Autumn is a season of humiliation. When Joe comes home with his fiancé, Mary appears as messy as ever and shockingly hostile towards the younger woman. For the first time, Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen allow Tom and Gerri's judgment to start boiling over into their treatment of a friend both in need and out of line. In terms of technique, it's fascinating to see Manville replay so many of the same behavioral patterns, the same conversational rhythms of her springtime visit, the same notes to an altered symphony. Sadness has soured into anger as she recounts holiday plans gone to seed, intermittently stealing sullen looks at the one she considers an intruder. What once flowed smoothly is fragmented and harsh in the present tense.
Another Year is characterized by the variations inherent in imperfect repetition, a feature synthesized within Manville's all-consuming characterization. If Spring's self-pity transitioned into Summer's self-hatred, Autumn's aggression bleeds towards the paralyzing defeat of Winter. The final chapter starts without Mary, as the couple and their son travel to attend the funeral of Ronnie's wife. It's a somber affair that culminates in confrontation, with the widowed man returning to London with his brother. In that house, not his own, while Tom and Gerri are away in their garden, Ronnie meets Mary, allowing her to take refuge in the silent place. This time, though, the meaningless chatter of yore is subsumed. The quiet closes its maw over a woman who seems so changed from the one we met at the start.
Still, that change is external only, for Mary's brokenness was always there. Only now, the lonely loss of her gaze has devoured everything about the character. The constant movement hasn't yet stilled to a stop, but it's waning by the minute, a balloon running out of air in slow motion. As someone who lives with depression and has seen its shroud over many loved ones, the final chapter in Mary's evolution always struck me as visceral to the point it becomes unbearable. Manville depurates all the murkiness of a depressed mind, reducing it to an essential emptiness that's muted and cacophonic at the same time. Whatever invisible brokenness Tom and Gerri could once ignore is laid bare for all to see, finally made too obvious to be overlooked. In a final shot of superlative power, Manville is the epitome of abandonment made flesh, isolation crystalized in celluloid.
When discussing Lesley Manville's Another Year performance in an awards season context, it's essential to consider her fluid categorization. In other words, there was a lot of confusion at the time about whether the role should be deemed a lead or a supporting role. I tend to think of her as one of the film's protagonists and would have slotted her in my ideal Best Actress lineup. Part of this is a mathematical matter of screen time – she's in more of the picture than any other cast member. Perhaps more crucial is the role she plays within the narrative's structure, giving it a proper shape and tonal arc. Though Tom and Gerri are the prisms through which we discover Mary, her story delineates the flick's shifting priorities and registers.
In total, Lesley Manville collected around 25 nominations throughout the 2010/1 awards season, including a BAFTA nod and the NBR prize. Furthermore, Another Year was on the Academy's radar since Leigh nabbed one more Original Screenplay nomination. Sadly, Manville didn't make it in either Best Actress or Supporting Actress, maybe due to split votes. In the lead race, AMPAS chose Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right, Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole, Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone, Natalie Portman in Black Swan, and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine. For the supporting lineup, the chosen five were Amy Adams and Melissa Leo in The Fighter, Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech, Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit, and Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom. Portman and Leo won the Oscars.
You can find Another Year to rent or buy on all the usual platforms.
Reader Comments (10)
She was great in that film as it's among the reasons why I love Mike Leigh so much.
it's just occurred to me that if claire foy makes the supporting actress line-up this year, all the elizabeths and margarets from the crown would be oscar nominees
Mike Leigh is 79 members of the Academy.
Working the way Mike Leigh does gives us performances like this plus Staunton Hawkins,Blethyn,Steadman,Horrocks,Baptiste.
I LOVE her.
Just noticed that Another Year is featured in the Sony Pictures Classics retrospective on Criterion Channel, one of many great films I want to rewatch, along with Run Lola Run, Junebug, American Movie... an amazing collection.
One of the best performances in a Mike Leigh film and I concur that category confusion probably cost her the nomination. The scene you mentioned where Mary meets Joe's girlfriend highlights the depths a terrific actor can get to when they're given a part as rich as the one Lesley Manville was given here, when you see the emotions Mary goes through - jealousy, defensiveness, vulnerability and sorrow. And all in a few minutes, not just verbally but in her body language, and, like so many other scenes of hers, it was so painfully recognisable.
Thank you for showcasing this unforgettable performance.
100% deserved the Oscar win, in either category!
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. The very definition of Oscar-worthy. Manville's amazing performance shines brightly in Mike Leigh's Another Year. Maybe hers will be the last genius performance in the director's filmography.
Thanks to Mr. Alves for a brilliant analysis of an even more brilliant characterization by Ms. Manville, which deserved every word of this extensive treatment.
Gawd, I love Lesley Manville in this. She hardly ever turns in a bad performance and I've seen just about everything she's ever done, including early career British TV guest starring roles.
But while her performance is fine, she is so MISCAST in The Crown. In fact, every single one of those stellar actors (e.g., Staunton, Dibecki, West) are all wrong for those parts.