Vera Drake and Other Things

Apologies for lack of posts... got hit by a film essay and had to go into panic mode to finish it in time. Nearly dissolved my brain in the process, took awhile to recover.

But it's worth it to keep the entity of film study alive. And it's a film I'm gonna ramble on about today, namely Vera Drake.

Vera Drake is a movie I've been interested in seeing ever since it first came out. It never got shown at our cinema so at the time it passed me by. It was only when I saw Sam's name on it on IMDB I finally kicked myself into buying the DVD. From a Sam perspective, I needn't really have bothered. He's in it for a minute or two as a drunken aristocratic young man who forces himself onto a nervous young aristocratic woman. And that's it - he's never seen again. Give him his due, however, despite only having a minute or two to establish his character you really do dislike him. So I guess it worked.

Moving on from Sam's (miniscule) role... the movie starts off well. It is one of those slow-moving deep-meaning films which in general I quite like. The characters are very realistic and interesting enough, the scenery is wonderful (gritty and dark and constantly overshadowing everyone) and some of the dialogue is quite witty. However, after a while I began to feel that the 'realism' of the movie was crushing the entertainment aspects. I realise that this movie has a message - its trying to strike up a debate on the topic of abortions and all the stigma that comes with that topic - but I also feel that they will have lost some of the audience in the overly long awkwards scenes, especially between Vera and the police.

The strange thing is that I heard many wonderful reviews of her acting skills, in particular during the first arrival of the police at her house. And at first I would have agreed with all of them, she played her face, voice and dialogue perfectly. Unfortunately all of those scenes went on just a bit too long and it really started to grate on my nerves after ten minutes of her sobbing instead of answering questions. Many of the interesting characters that you meet throughout the tenements - and throughout Vera's little 'visits' to pregnant mothers - are lost in the second half of the movie. In fact it only really redeems itself in a short but wonderfully written scene where the freshly imprisoned Vera talks nervously to two other imprisoned women, who sympathise and tell her of their own performances of illegal abortions. Vera's shocked and frightened look coupled with the seemingly world-weary women works perfectly to capture all that the movie is trying to say - encompassing the good, the bad and the practical aspects of illegal abortions all in one.

However, to say that the movie dragged is perhaps a little harsh. Up until Vera's arrest the movie introduces many fascinating characters. The women she visits - from the nervous, frightened girl on the ground floor to the well-practiced slut (and I don't mean that harshly) in her much richer apartment. The best is probably the young Jamaican girl, the one who questions everything about the procedure and looks so frightened and alone when Vera finally leaves her.

Another interesting aspect - detached from the subject of abortions almost entirely - is the little sub-story of Vera's daughter and her eventual marriage to a man Vera invites in for dinner at the beginning of the movie. The young couple are so nervous (with one another as much as with other people) and their slow and gradual 'courtship' is wonderful to watch. And so very real, especially compared to all these fast-paced romatic comedies you get nowadays. I almost felt sad that I couldn't see more, though they at least seemed to end on a happy note.

All in all it is worth a watch and probably some people would enjoy it a lot better than me. I appreciated what it was trying for and if they had simply edited down some of the scenes in the police-station (and the back and forth from station to house to courtroom also seemed un-necessary) then I think it could have really worked. I also wonder whether Vera's character - so praised by critics - was the right choice to go for. Many people (in the movie and in reality) mention her self-less-ness. She certainly works hard at cleaning houses however I couldn't tell if her tendancy to constantly ask people if they wanted a cup of tea was charming or a little insulting. I know that I tend to do that, mainly at my gran's, but I'd hate to think that it was my only solution to a problem. By the end Vera was sounding a little like Doctor Who. Tea can't solve everything. But as I said, it may have simply been charmingly British.

So how do I rate this movie? Well I feel a little harsh but here goes:


As a Film/TV Episode: 3 out of 5
As a Sam feature: 1 out of 5 (I would put 0 - but he does get to dance)
WARNINGS: Contains sexual references but no graphic scenes. The medical bits might make you squirm.