The Sunday Morning Movie Presents: Life Is Sweet (1990) Run Time: 1H 43M

Hello, gentle readers, welcome to another Sunday Morning Movie! Today we present Life Is Sweet, an oddly charming tale of a few weeks in the life of a working class British family in the 1990’s.

Reviews:

The Criterion Collection writes

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.

A reviewer at letterboxd writes:

What a beautiful little slice of life. It’s impressive how the family is depicted as direct and honest, but the underlying drama is how one of them is keeping a dark part of her life secret. It culminates in an argument that isn’t so much an argument as an angry expression of love, and yet, it never loses its edge and realism. It’s lightly silly, but never unreal. So genuine it hurt. I loved it.

I found the Life is Sweet to be enjoyable but a definite departure from my usual tastes. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I’m just not generally interested in “slice of life” fare. The various comings and goings, doings and sayings of the characters are amusing and compelling…and sometimes confusing. It made a lot more sense to me when I learned that the director, Mike Leigh, creates his movies by allowing for collective improvisation. The movie’s seeming disjointedness was transformed into charming spontaneity.

Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is a popular independent film maker and has a career spanning more than 60 years. He has worked as a screenwriter, producer, director and briefly as an actor in theater, television, and film. Leigh has won various filmmaking awards as well as earning seven Academy Award nominations. In 1993 he was admitted into the Order of the British Empire and in 2014 he received a BAFTA Fellowship.

Director: Mike Leigh

Notable Actors: None

Spoilers!

Synopsis:

The story is set in a working class suburb of London where Wendy and Andy (Alison Steadman and Jim Broadbent), live with their twin daughters Natalie and Nicola (Claire Skinner and Jane Horrocks).

These daughters are polar opposites. Nicola, a bespectacled waif who smokes cigarettes, suffers from bulimia, and enjoys a mild sexual food fetish, is grumpy and negative. On the other hand Natalie is a hard working plumber with a cheerful disposition and a dry sense of humor.

Andy is an executive chef at a catering hall and has settled into the role of a middle-aged father with a penchant for beer and dreams of working for himself one day. To the shock and amusement of his wife Wendy, he purchases and mobile hot-dog stand from a friend and imagines himself working soccer matches and the like. Wendy is critical but realizes Andy must have his dreams, even if they are unlikely to play out. Those dreams are pushed off further when Andy trips on a spoon at work and breaks his leg.

At the same time, a family friend opens a crackpot version of a French restaurant and hires Wendy to act as the waitress. The first night is a disaster as he has forgotten to advertise the place and no one shows up. The friend gets roaring drunk and puts the moves on Wendy, who dismisses him and heads home, leaving him a drunken puddle on the floor.

But the movie has a serious side. Nicola is convinced she is fat and ugly. Her sister’s cheery demeanor and firm grasp on her life depresses her as she realizes her life is a mess.

Wendy confronts Nicola about her behavior. Nicola tries to unload her woes onto her mother but Wendy turns the table and angrily points out that the family loves her. The scene ends with Nicola crying, wiser. Life is Sweet ends with the sisters talking with each other on the back porch. Natalie offers Nicola some money to help her along and Nicola, letting down her defenses for the first time, accepts.