Directed by: Mike Leigh
Staring: Imelda Staunton, Philip Davis, Peter Wright, Adrian Scarborough
Winner of the Golden Lion for Best Film at last year’s Venice Film Festival, Imelda Staunton also took the best actress award for her portrayal of Vera, a hard-working, generally cheerful and inspiring cleaning lady living in 1950s Britain. To her neighbours and friends Vera is nothing remarkable, but she leads a secret secondary life as an illegal back-street abortionist, helping girls who “got themselves into trouble”.
Set in the days before the Abortion Act, indeed in the days before the subject was even mentioned, Leigh gives a pitiless portrayal of the hypocrisy and harshness that characterised life in the Britain of the immediate post-war period.
Peter Bradshaw writing in the Guardian said: “I have seen nothing as compelling since Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven…. Clarity of dramatic language and superb, humane performances are the bedrock of this outstanding film”.