Watch Another Year For Free

People are voting emotionally.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Mike Leigh's 'Another Year' at first feels like a very smug movie: a likable, affluent couple pass their time together over the course of a year, often in the company of variously inadequate friends who alternately entertain them and require their support. Eventually, a drama emerges from the growing stresses of one of these relationships; but it's a very well-signalled development. What makes the film a success is the sheer skill with which director and cast pull off the individual encounters: Leigh famously prepares for writing the final drafts of his scripts through improvisation, and this film in particular feels like an assembly of scenes emerging from a workshop, but there's no denying they're beautifully done, drawing you into the misery of the characters even where you knew exactly what was coming. And gradually, the film's perspective shifts from that of the insiders (whose compassion is increasing revealed as finite) to that of the outsiders. The abrupt ending offers no promises of happiness to those who didn't have it already when the movie began.

OK, I go to film festivals, I had my share of artsy films, multi-layered films, meaning-of-life films, Scandinavian films - and I found something interesting, worth thinking about, worth talking about in most of them. Well, this film has nothing in it. Just a bunch of uninteresting people exchanging platitudes and coming up with revelations about life such as: it's depressing to be single, getting old is not much fun, alcohol does not solve one's problems...The characters lack, well, character; one cannot like them or dislike them. You cannot pity them; you cannot admire them. They are banal. All the people who gave this film good ratings owe me $2.99 - the video rental price - and 2 hours of my life.

There are very few filmmakers like Mike Leigh these days. It is all about pretty people pretending to be interesting, and failing at it miserably. Mike Leigh hires magnificent character actors that Great Britain seems to have an abundance of, and simply tells a story. Ordinary people with ordinary lives, loving and hating, laughing and aching,living and dying." Another Year" is just a big slice of life. Four seasons of lives of several people. All very simple, at first sight, but rich and fragrant and truly complex, as meaningful things usually are. And actors...Absolutely perfect every single one of them. But Lesley Manville stands out in a role of needy drunken friend Mary. If there was ever an actor deserving an Oscar-this women is. Precise, irritating and heartbreaking. A masterpiece...

British director Mike Leigh invites us on a journey through life itself through his film Another Year (2010), winner of the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury-Special Mention at Cannes.Narrated in a linear fashion, the film tells what happens during a year in the life of a happy couple living in north London, as well as what happens with some of his relatives and friends. The story is divided into four chapters, each represented by one season.It is a tender and simple plot, which deals with the inevitable cycle of years, how life happens and we sailed through it.Throughout history we see the characters face loneliness, compassion, and the pursuit of love and happiness in daily life. The situations they face are merely ordinary and they have nothing out of the ordinary, which helps to generate empathy with the audience, because the audience can easily identify with what they see on screen, and the anguish of the characters before which they live.It's a film that becomes a mirror of everyday life, but offers different views and ways of seeing things, because each character is different. Presents comedy situations, but never loses the seriousness of what counts.It's a good script, developed from the characters (well played) which is common in the style of Leigh, and works because it gives that naturalness, fluidity and richness to the story, which make them unique to each of his films.Mike Leigh tells us what happens for a year in the life of the characters, and is a year where we see the characters change (for better or worse) and is a year that does not end all that happens. It's a film that touches deep issues and leaves the viewer thinking about everything that can happen in just one year of his life.