"All or Nothing" is a slice-of-wretched-life flick about a miserable dysfunctional working class London family. There's little arc to the story of walrus Phil Bassett and family who move sloth-like from day to day unhappy and unfulfilled. Undoubtedly an excellent film by film making standards, Mike Leigh puts the audience in the position of having to accept his characters' plaintive existence on faith by not showing the psychodynamics which perpetuate their misery and just giving us the result. In other words, we see sad people stewing in their own juices which makes the buy-in difficult and the protagonists more ignoble. Personally I was happy to see the foul mouthed fat kid keel over from heart attack though I don't think that was how Leigh intended the audience to react and I suspect many a weeping wallower was wringing tears from their hanky. Given a 2 hour run, misery throughout, and character we couldn't care less about without charity, most will find "All or Nothing" more nothing than all. (B)
Review of All or Nothing
