Tetrady not as good as all the hype

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Hulkeasexo it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

mike dewey I've just read some of the other comments on this film and am now engaged in a bout with writers block because in no way will I begin to shed a better light on our subject film than the engaging analyses already posted on this site. This tale about a lower working class South London family in a nondescript housing project is one that simultaneously depresses and uplifts the spirit. You'll find no plastic yuppie rich boy/girl "wannabee" hot shots roaming about the screen, spewing ostentatious insipidities in this film. These are people on the low end of the economic ladder who make no pretensions or excuses for their situation in life.Mike Leigh and company totally hit the proverbial nail on the head in this one. Suffice it to say that Tim Spall and Lesley Manville each rendered riveting performances in their portrayals of the unmarried couple with two grown kids. The realistic "mise en scene" and the accompanying dialog/story line were grittily absorbing works of art, especially the long scene toward the film's conclusion. I may as well bestow kudos to the rest of the cast as well because their contributions, both individually and collectively, greatly augmented the story line as a whole. This modern gem, in its ambient unpretentiousness, so capably underscores the unmitigated power of love, acceptance, and triumph of the spirit no matter how grim the situation.

paul2001sw-1 Mike Leigh's 'All or Nothing' features some of the trademarks of his best known films: naturalistic acting, moments of extreme poignancy, and a sensitive portrait of those for whom modern life is not easy. But it lacks the more comic characters who have often adorned his work. In their absence, the result is one of his most understated, and downbeat, movies since his debut feature 'Bleak Moments'; and in spite of little jewels in the script, at times its almost painfully hard to watch. Additionally, the portrait of a very white British underclass, and the empty streets of the estate where they live, doesn't quite seem in tune with life as it is actually lived today. To my mind (and despite the Oscar nominations won by 'Secrets and Lies) Leigh's best contemporary portraits remains his early 1990s trio: the bittersweet 'High Hopes', the hilarious 'Life is Sweet' and the coruscating 'Naked'; but as he followed this film with the brilliant period drama 'Vera Drake', maybe he simply needed a change of scene to refocus his vision. Still, this film is definitely a minor entry in his canon.

fedor8 Solid drama, and quite weepy, the way Leigh makes them nowadays. There's practically no humour at all, which is a shame. He used to do these sorts of "heavy" dramas but with a degree of pathos and wit, which raised its level well above other kitchen-sink dramas. (I always thought Leigh did these films the way they should be done, unlike the hopelessly overrated Ken Loach.) "Naked" was excellent, "Meantime" and "Bleak Moments" were very good, "Life Is Sweet" was good, but "All Or Nothing"?... Merely average, and quite forgettable. Spall's comedic potential is wasted. He plays a miserable, ultra-depressed, overweight cab-driver who suffers from the fact that his wife (apparently) no longer loves him. His kids are extremely over-weight; the son is a lazy, unmannered slob, and the daughter is hard-working but withdrawn, extremely shy. His wife is miserable, too – but you could have guessed that. The other characters? Mostly miserable, frustrated Londoners – you know, that sort of thing. Leigh covers no new ground here. It's just another family drama targeted at female audiences (and pretentious male ones). It is a bit annoying that Leigh opts for the "safe and easy" route by doing an all-out drama. We all know that writing a drama is incomparably easier than writing one which has comedy in it. Leigh has become lazy. Either that, or he wants to be even more recognized as an "artist", and what better way to do that than by making all-out drama like that abortion-rights movie he did recently. The critics loved it – predictably. An interesting cast, the acting is quite good, but where are the laughs?

MrSqwubbsy It strikes me that this sort of stuff bewitches the French etc at their film festivals because they fatuously see in it a corrective to the Curtis/Grant Cool Britannia, "red London bus school" of UK film-making but in reality it's just as false and fatuous -- all that Leigh's ladelled out here is an unappetising,lardy dollop of council estate ennui, over two hours of it, with precious little action and few of the light comic touches that he usually throws in to keep us engaged. Either he doesn't have it in him anymore or he felt that keeping it unrelentingly bleak this time marks him out as a more serious film maker. Whatever,it's an unwelcome and redundant return to Mean Time territory (now over over 20 years old) that reeks of the late '70s/early '80s and,despite its pretensions has little of the flavour of modern Britain. Everything here feels laughably out-of-date -- from the tarty estate girl (who looks like a refugee from some obscure '50s British black-and-white movie) to the comedy alcoholic mum (who reminds me of the bint in the Fat Les "Vindaloo" video). Only the subject of obesity gives it any contemporary feel. And a fat lot of good that is! In short, Leigh's gone back to basics here, tried to "do a Ken Loach" and produced a real gobbler that is not worth feeding to the dog on Boxing Day. Here's the plot,such as it is -- a bunch of uninteresting, taciturn working class folk living in Bermondsey eke out a turgid existence (no sign of drugs though-hmmm,has Mike read any newspapers lately?) variously getting pantomime drunk at karaoke evenings (can't remember her name but that character was so laughably simplistic that I almost took her to be a post-modernist joke slipped in!), now and again shouting at each other, having listless sex, and barely able to conjure up a wry larf between the lot of them. Who do ya think you are,Mr Mike Leigh,with your paternalistic middle class inversely-romanticised view of working class life? Oi Leigh, NO-O-O-O! Don't you think that these people can still have fun? Geez,this is as bad as Woody Allen when he decided to "go serious" and make Bergman movies,but without any of the feeling or the skill. Here Leigh's tried to remake himself, 20 years on but forgot to look out his window and see what'd changed! Ferchrissakes,these people would have topped themselves if this was all that life had to offer them! Really you're every bit as out of touch with that class as are the poor old writers of Eastenders,who also seem to think that all their working class characters are fit for is barneying and throwing themselves at every passing bit of skirt 5 minutes after the wedding ceremony! Now,I used to be big Fan of Leigh's right back to Nuts in May and up to Life is Sweet, but it needs an aficionado not a sycophant (and nowadays Leigh's got his fair share of the latter on both sides of the Channel!) to blow the whistle on bombs like this one. Please,I implore you, forget this exists, go back to the early funny ones and don't,but don't, for pity's sake watch the vox pops from the actors without a sick bag to hand. Come in Mr Leigh your time is up!