I finally saw Vera Drale last night, and I don't know how it got all the love it did. Really its not bad, its just not memorable. I guess he focused a bit too much on Drake (Staunton) and the character wasn't complex enough to really hold your attention. There wasn't really any ambiguity, and while his previous movies have explored spaces that are a bit more vague. Drake clearly had a more defined agenda. Its an important one that is a huge issue today, so I don't discourage his actions at all, but really 50% of the movies was tears. The first half tracked this wealthy daughter Susan who was raped and became preganant. She was distraught and cried to the point of being incoherent to others, the second 1/2 of the movie pretty much has Drake doing the same thing when she is arrested.

The movie had some interesting points, including more than a 1/2 dozen visits that allow the audiance to experience the many woemn who ask Drake for help. Its illustrative of class, personality, and support systems, as each women that asks for help clearly embodies a different section of the population. Susan, who is very wealthy, does not go to Drake, she gets an expensive "legal" one, proving that while the need for abortions is not restricted to class, access to it is (surprise). Its all interesting if you aren't well versed in the subject matter, but I am, so I needed a bit more out of the characters than dramatics.

Its very tight, and crisp as far as a movie, and I guess my discussions around storytelling aply here as well, since I do see how this could have been infinately worse. Still, I wasn't particularly moved to either tears or contemplation.

B-

I'll write an official review after I think more about it, the grade might change a bit.

I was supposed to see it last night but couldn't make it (caught a cold). And that theater has pulled it.

It is coming back to another theater the week before the Oscars. I hope to see it then.

You gotta love Iowa. I wanted to see Overnight, the documentary about Boondock Saints and Miramax but they pulled it in exchange for Yes Men.

Hey, why not just show them all? ](*,)

I was kind of disappointed by the movie too. Any scene not related to Imelda Staunton/abortion was completely uninteresting to me. I didn't care for the direction and particularly the screenplay. The scenes showing "real life British people talking" bored me to tears. I wish the director had focused more on the abortion part of the story instead of the tangential stuff. However, I did like how the movie wasn't a propaganda movie for just one side and showed things fairly.

And I found Imelda Stauton to be the performance of the year. For such an underdeveloped character, Imelda's emotional acting gave her more depth than the writing had to offer. She made the difference in me giving the movie a B instead of a high C.

I really want to see Vera Drake, I'm not sure if I'll really like it though. I'll watch it with a very open mind.

Hmmm, I think there isn't actually too much more he could have focused on with the abortions. I thought it was hitting the audiance over the head already. Its the other way around for me, her trial and tears just didn't sustain my interest much. Had he not edited in scenes of susan, or her son going to the dancing hall, or her daughter dating than the movie would have hurt. I think the movie itself, as you say, isn;t "propagandistic" but on the other hand it provided me with no new insight, and I doubt any anti-choice people bothered watching it, so he should have realized who his audiance was. Stauton was not the performance of the year any more than Brody was for Pianist. I think she's worthy of a nom, but not the win. There were no violent shifts in personality nor was it a subtle and hollistic build of a psyche and character. she played the nicest most enthusiastic old lady in the first half so that the audiance could find no wrong in her, and therefor be upset by her arrest. Thats it, and then she cried a ton. Its a tough thing to cry the way she did, and I'm not trying to lesson what really was a strong performance, but it wasn't the most interesting or insightful one this year.

The one thing I noticed which is interesting was the third (female) officer's sympathy. Basically they started to include her in many of the scenes mid-way through the movie because Drake probably would have had a bit of trouble sustaining the space on her own entirely. Did anyone else catch the young officer. Her sympathy was interesting only because it was never conclusive, and for all we know, she didn't really care at all. But what I wonder is how effectively the scenes could have worked either without her, or with an individual that bridged the gender gap. Making theassumption that a female officer would be more sympathetic than, lets say, a young male (for reasons unnamed) still fell in line with the female-male dichotomy in the film. Its the son that gets mad at her and not the daughter, and the wife of his brother who is so repulsed by it is clearly portrayed as the worst of all the family figures. I don't know, the introduction of the female officer was a very interesting space for its potential, though I don't know how fully recognized that potential was. He could have also been doing it unconsciously (though I doubt that).