Tom and Gerri Hepple are the best and worst friends a person could have: they are so cheery, warm and content that one could tell them anything and feel better for it. But they also serve as a baiting bug zapper for every broken individual who hasn't achieved happiness past that imaginary but oh-so-tangible point of no return. Drawn by the allure of what seems a perfect life, those lonely, miserable people suddenly find themselves confronted with everything they aren't, and it sucks being the least happy person in a room. It usually leads to yet more unhappiness.
One almost does not need to say that Another Year is a Mike Leigh film as it is almost self-evidently so. Not only does it feature a number of actors who've collaborated with the director before, it displays the cynical but human understanding Leigh has honed over his career, a psychology he achieves through his trademark interaction with and faith in actors. After the deceptively sweet Happy-Go-Lucky—which revealed its own pains and complications in its ostensibly two-dimensional lead and her (bi)polar opposite played by Eddie Marsan—Leigh returns to a more downbeat fare, though the portrait of romantic bliss and Platonic turmoil makes for one of Leigh's most emotionally well-rounded films.
