Mike Leigh’s family comedy is funny, painful and warmly recommended, with Alison Steadman making its kindness feel hard-earned. A few performances push towards caricature, but the affection never depends on making everyone easy company.
Life Is Sweet is a warmly recommended family comedy, provided you can bear people who are not always pleasant company. Mike Leigh writes and directs with patience for the small irritations that keep a household busy and the larger unhappiness that cannot be laughed away. He lets the joking and the distress occupy the same conversation. There is little urgency about getting anywhere, and that is mostly a pleasure across its 103 minutes.
Alison Steadman’s Wendy supplies much of the warmth, and Steadman makes keeping cheerful look like something that requires attention. She gives the jokes energy without pretending that good humour solves everything. We were moved by the worry she lets us hear underneath the joking. Jim Broadbent’s Andy is a useful partner to her, making ordinary hopefulness touching without asking us to regard it as wisdom.
Jane Horrocks’s Nicola is difficult company, played with a conviction that occasionally becomes too insistent. Claire Skinner, as Natalie, offers a quieter presence, valuable in a film whose louder characters can occupy more space than they need. Timothy Spall’s Aubrey takes the broad comedy further still, and a little of that emphasis goes a long way. Leigh could trust these actors with a little less insistence; the more painful feelings are clear enough without it.
Dick Pope’s cinematography makes the domestic scenes feel intimate without insisting that we find every face endearing. The attention stays on the people doing the talking and the people having to listen, which is where much of the comedy lies. Alison Chitty’s production design gives the family rooms that feel used, so the actors seem at home even when they are uncomfortable with one another. The surroundings do not compete with the people for attention.
Jon Gregory’s editing allows conversation to find its own pace, including the stretches when nobody is being especially entertaining. That patience is essential to the film’s sense of family life, although a few passages could be shorter without losing much. Rachel Portman’s music adds a gentleness that helps the rougher comedy settle without smothering it. The more reflective mood is welcome after so much verbal and physical fuss.
The contrast between Steadman’s busy warmth and Skinner’s quieter acting also helps Leigh avoid a common failing of family comedy: making everyone express affection in the same way. He leaves room for people who do not dominate a conversation. That matters when some of the comic turns are so emphatic, and it keeps the film from becoming exhausting. The quieter performances are worth attending to even when someone else has the more conspicuous joke.
Give it an evening when a plot can wait. There is pleasure here in watching actors attend to the small changes in a conversation, and enough discomfort to stop the company becoming cosy. It is a good film to watch with someone whose habits you know rather better than you would like.
