I really like quiet British movies--this one was so quiet that for a long time I had trouble figuring out what the point was. It stars Jim Broadbent, who is one of my absolute favorite British actors--in this one, he and his wife (Ruth Sheen) are a very functional and happy couple with jobs that they like. Not much of a story there--they garden contentedly together, and are comapnionable in every way.
The thing is, no one in their lives has anything approaching what they have--they seem to attract people who cannot get it together. Their friends have no friends, no relationships, they drink too much, and they feel sorry for themselves for the plight they find themselves in. Tom and Gerri (seriously, those are their names) seem to collect these hapless people, who drop in on them regularly and make no progress, despite the cheerful and functional example they set.
They seem to have a limitless capacity for tolerance up until the time that one of Gerry's friends develops an ill-advised crush on Gerry's son--who has a girlfriend that Tom and Gerry like--at that point they start to set some limits on their friends who really don't get it--what?? They have to spell it out for her. It is a typical Michael Leigh movie in that it ends quietly and gently, not with a bang, but it sticks with you.
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