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Waste of time

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Aside from Naked, I've been left disappointed in Mike Leigh's films and all for the exact same reason – sub plots and sub characters that are more interesting than the main plot & characters but don't get developed and are left as loose ends.This has been a reoccurring theme in the 3 Mike Leigh films I have watched recently (All or Nothing, Meantime and Life Is Sweet). In each case, there are characters and sub plots that come along and start to look interesting but just as they seem to be going somewhere, they are forgotten about as the main characters & storyline take over for about the last 20 minutes and everything else is just left unresolved. I have finished each of these films thinking "why??!" What is even more perplexing is that the sub plots and sub characters are usually more interesting than the main plots & characters. But even if they weren't, it's not very good writing or film making to start a storyline and just leave it mid air. It doesn't make any sense and yet it seems to be a theme in his films.Aside from that, I struggled to enjoy All or Nothing. James Cordon's character was great and interesting, but the remaining 3 family members were dull, weak, mopey and annoyingly subordinate. I found the reconciliation between the wife and husband at the end to be weak and unconvincing.I wish there had been more time spent on the 2 trashy girls who live in the same block of flats. Both them and their families were a lot more interesting.

This probably impressed me less than any other film by Mike Leigh that I've seen. But I mean that more as a compliment to Leigh than as a criticism of the film because its quite good by any normal standards. There's an odd quality to its narrative structure. The film has two distinctive halves. The first deals with the collective life of a housing project in Kent and seems almost like a British-ization of Bela Tarr's "Satantengo." It's relentlessly bleak- miserable people screaming at each other in conversations that go nowhere- and at times comes close to self-parody. I don't think I've ever heard the phrases "F--- off!" "You make me sick!" and "Care for a cup of tea then?" so many times in one hour. Yet, it retains a grim power, if for no other reason than the moments of mesmerizing cinematography by Dick Pope- its Leigh's visually splashiest film since "Naked"- and the characteristically wonderful score by Andrew Dickson. The second half focuses much more conventionally on one family, and is, taken in and of itself, one of the most warm and sentimental works Leigh has produced. Timothy Spall gives another great performance as a genuinely philosophical, and lazy, man. His marriage is put to the test. You feel happy at the out-come, but not sure its in anyone in the family's best-interest.

I don't know who Mike Leigh is, nor do I care. This movie SUCKS! unless you're a British "council estate" resident, whatever that is. I want to see a movie to "escape from reality" so to speak, rather than be assaulted by depressive, pseudo-normal residents of this English slum. If this is "entertainment" (which is why I see movies), I choose not to be entertained. God, what an ordeal to sit through this entire movie!Hey, Leigh, get in the documentary business, if this is the kind of crap you're trying to pawn off on the viewing public as "entertainment."I was not entertained in the least. I only felt deep sorrow for your characters, and did not have the feeling I should have when leaving the theater in which I first saw it. I want to leave feeling "good," or at least "happy," so if your intent was to leave me miserable, you succeeded.Perhaps you accomplished what you meant to achieve when I left the movie house, but I guarantee you I will never watch another movie with your name associated with it, for I don't wish to spend my diversionary time experiencing the emotions I did after watching this boring piece of crap.I assume your are of the English (meaning England) descent, as I doubt Americans will enjoy this depressive piece of English tripe. Do us all a favor, and remain on your side of "the pond." Thanks.

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?