Saturday, January 22, 2011

Another Year



Another Year got on my radar because of its run at several of the festivals in 2010. It took quite some time for it to finally make it to the theaters and there are some reasons for that. I don't see it having a long run in the theaters, but I do think it is something worth checking out (eventually).

The script is a very technical one that just screams that is should have been performed on stage and not on film. It is well written, but the direction allows for a lot of quiet periods that slows the pace of the movie down. The story follows an older couple in their 60s (Tom and Gerri) for a year with their friends coming into and out of their daily lives. We start in the spring where their garden and a life is beginning. The garden is used as a means of communicating the time passing during the movie as we continue through Summer, Fall and Winter. The seasons also give us life in the beginning and death in the end.

Through all of the seasons we focus on a well adjusted Tom and Gerri that are the rock for their friends. We have Mary, a lonely woman in her 50s that is a terrible drunk and pushes herself on others in a rather uncomfortable way. Then there is Ken, a lonely man in his 50s that enjoys eating and drinking; and has a thing for Mary that you just have to think would be a perfect match, but well do we really want to see two cars racing towards each other knowing that the end result isn't going to be pretty (well you just have to watch the movie to find out). Finally we have Tom and Gerri's son who is just stuck in the middle of all of this.

The movie asks the question if you could change one thing in your life that would make you happy what would it be. It is one of the hardest questions to answer and I challenge everyone to take a minute to do just that. But the real challenge is following through with it, and not like a new years resolution that you forget about a couple weeks into the year.

In the end we have a humorous but mostly achingly sad movie. This is a good movie about the ordinary lives of ordinary people. Not sure if it will get any attention from the awards, but I will give this a respectable 3 Quacks.

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