Life Is Sweet Page #6

Synopsis: Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, leads aerobics at a primary school, jokes like a vaudevillian, agrees to waitress at a friend's new restaurant and dotes on Andy, a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, and with a drunken friend, buys a broken down lunch wagon. Natalie, with short neat hair and a snappy, droll manner, is a plumber; she has a holiday planned in America, but little else. Last is Nicola, odd man out: a snarl, big glasses, cigarette, mussed hair, jittery fingers, bulimic, jobless, and unhappy. How they interact and play out family conflict and love is the film's subject.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Director(s): Mike Leigh
Production: Republic Pictures Home Video
  8 wins & 3 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.5
Metacritic:
88
Rotten Tomatoes:
100%
R
Year:
1990
103 min
1,108 Views


I'm sorry I said I would do it now

Just go for it

You wore that for

Joans wedding didn't you

Oh blimey yeah

Aw poor Joan

Poor Donald

What about Tracy?

I like this

Yeah now you're talking -

Yeah that's the one isn't it

Yeah

I preferred

the white

Oh blimey

I'm going

to be late

Oh eh Andy do

you remember this?

You do us

any tea Wend?

Yeah there's a little

chicken casserole in the oven

That's nice

You hungry?

Here I went to this

old girls house today right

She had her dead

dog lying on the sofa

She never -

Eh?

No, the skin

spread out like a rug

Oh charming -

Eww

She had arthritic hands

couldn't turn her tap on

Thought it was bust

I went straight to it gave it

a good twist and it was perfectly alright

So what did

you do then?

Well I changed the washer

for her so she didn't look stupid

Oh that's

a good girl

Did you charge

her a call out?

Well I had to you

know what they're like

I didn't want to

Where's this then?

Off the A10

somewhere

She said she would give me some toffee

though she couldn't find her ration book

Did she?

Aww bless her

I don't suppose you know

what a ration book is do you?

Course I do

Learn allsorts in

your business don't you

and she kept

calling me a good lad

Oh she never?

Yeah

Well you should of said to her

listen I'm a Miss

Nah no point

More interesting

than my job

Same every day

We had a bloke slice the

end off his finger this morning

What right off?

No there

was like a flap

No Andy don't

Christ -

There was alot of blood

No it was

his own fault

I've a very good accident

record as it happens

Yeah we know

No it's true, It's because I drum it into them

health and safety, health and safety

Still you're always going to get

someone showing off ain't you

Yeah

Oh blimey I haven't

done my nails

Come on lets leave her in peace

she's got to get ready for her big night

and shut

the door

Oh Wendy

You look fantastic

do you know that Wendy?

Oh thanks only I didn't

want to let you down y'know

You haven't

I've had six different

blouses on tonight

No so as long

as you're happy y'know

You're superb

Eh is that what

you're wearing?

?They lend you that for having soup?

That's what me Mum used to say

Are you

hungry?

I'll buy you some fish

and chips later y'know

Will you?

I might

See you've got tomato souffle -

Yeah

Kidney vol-au-vent -

Oh vol-au-vents yeah

We had them on me 21st

vol-au-vents they're nice

This is the

whole kidney

King prawn in jam sauce -

Oh yeah just the one

Chilled brains, they speak for themselves -

Oh not brains

Prune quiche, that's one

for our vegetarian friends

Right

Black pudding and camembert soup -

Oh no don't

Boiled bacon consomme -

Oh no consomme that's the same as soup isn't it?

It's basically the bacon water -

Yeah

That's like what your Mum

gives you when you're ill?

and a saveloy on a bit of lychees -

Oh I got a little Chinesey one in there

That's all your hors-o'deurs

and that's your entrees

Right so this is me main

course type of thing right

What's that one there

pork what? pork list?

Pork cyst

Cyst?

Yeah

Oh you're

joking me?

No

No it's not

called cyst?

Aw me Dad had one of them -

Did he?

Yeah underneath

Hey cough

Aw bless him

What is it?

It's like a

dumpling y'know

Oh I couldn't

and then we have

duck in chocolate sauce

yeah

Tongues in a rhubarb bouillabaisse -

Oh no

Liver in lager

and clams

in ham

That's with a pan fried

coq au base sauce

Yeah

Or quails in a bit of

spinach with treacle

Or my piet de resistance

grilled trotters with eggs over easy

Oh right

what's over easy?

State side

sunny side up y'know

Oh yeah the

one I can turn

Oh blimey Aubrey I'll

never remember all this

You'll be fine

Any problems

refer them to me

Yeah but you'll be in the

kitchen cooking won't you

Yeah I'll be in there, I'll be out here

I'll be everywhere

I'll be chef patron

y'know

Well you should of had your little

menus printed up like I told you, right?

Yeah yeah

no sweat

I want this restaurant to be built on a

one to one mouth to mouth reputation y'know

Would you like a

glass of wine Wendy?

Oh no thanks no me stomachs

all of a go with me nerves

Yeah go on in it

might sort you down

Oh go on then

just half a glass

Oh blimey I forgot I've got something for you -

Have you? oh great

Alright?

I want to

go for a fag

What?

Now?

We're busy

Are we?

Yeah go on then, be quick

just have half of one

With a bit of luck I'll

get me fortune told later

Feel free

Got a little

card for you

Oh thanks very much -

That's from me an Andy and the girls

Oh that's

fantastic

That's really brilliant, that's really marvellous

you're a really attractive woman, thanks very much

All the best

good luck

Thank you

We are now officially open -

blimey sorry sorry

As far as

I'm concerned

Footbal died the day

Arsenal won the double

That's right yeah

What was they?

workhorses

Boring buggers

ain't they

Where as the Spurs double team

they was artists wasn't they

Yeah they

was artists

Twenty one quid a week

they got, can you imagine?

What do they

get today? millions

Then they've got the back handers

on top of that ain't they

Poncing round the penalty area

with their handbags

Yeah prima donnas

Oh he kicked me, ref

Brown

Baker

Henry

Blanchflower

Yeah Danny boy

Yeah

He was the architect of

the modern game y'know

That's right yeah

Norman, McKay

Jones, White, Smith

Alan Dyson

Yeah, come on

you Spurs

John White

what a player eh?

Yeah

I used to have a little

picture of him on my wall

Ringed in black -

Yeah tragic

What a way to go

Struck by lightning

On a golf course

Yeah what a

waste eh?

Do you want another?

Yeah alright

Want something

with it?

Yeah, rum and black

Large one?

Yeah alright -

Yeah

See the thing is

Is that people don't like to

venture out too early do they?

No not on

a Tuesday no

No they like

to get home

Have a bath

Chill out

Have their tea

and then go

out to eat

Did you put an

advert in the paper?

Yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah

No I didn't actually

You should of had some little cards printed then

I could of given them out in the shop

Yeah I didn't want to attract

the wrong sort of people y'know

Oh charming oh

thanks very much Aubrey

Would you like another

glass of wine Wendy?

Oh yeah go on alright

I'll keep you company

Great hands

Do you think you'll

ever have kids?

No

Well you're pretty sure

for one so young

What? and look like a tank

for nine months? give me a break

Is that all you're worried about?

what you'll look like?

I'd make a

good Mother

Oh would you?

Yeah

Why? do you

want kids?

Yeah

In the fullness

of time

Do you?

Course

You've got to have

a boy friend first

Yeah one does generally

need a bloke this is true

Well you're not doing

very well then are you?

Well I haven't seen your men

exactly queuing up in droves

You don't know

What? they sneak around here in

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Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is an English writer and director of film and theatre. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) before honing his directing skills at East 15 Acting School and further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s his career moved between theatre work and making films for BBC Television, many of which were characterised by a gritty "kitchen sink realism" style. His well-known films include the comedy-dramas Life is Sweet (1990) and Career Girls (1997), the Gilbert and Sullivan biographical film Topsy-Turvy (1999), and the bleak working-class drama All or Nothing (2002). His most notable works are the black comedy-drama Naked (1993), for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA and Palme d'Or-winning drama Secrets & Lies (1996), the Golden Lion winning working-class drama Vera Drake (2004), and the Palme d'Or nominated biopic Mr. Turner (2014). Some of his notable stage plays include Smelling A Rat, It's A Great Big Shame, Greek Tragedy, Goose-Pimples, Ecstasy, and Abigail's Party.Leigh is known for his lengthy rehearsal and improvisation techniques with actors to build characters and narrative for his films. His purpose is to capture reality and present "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films." His aesthetic has been compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu. His films and stage plays, according to critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period." Coveney further noted Leigh's role in helping to create stars – Liz Smith in Hard Labour, Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party, Brenda Blethyn in Grown-Ups, Antony Sher in Goose-Pimples, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in Meantime, Jane Horrocks in Life is Sweet, David Thewlis in Naked—and remarked that the list of actors who have worked with him over the years—including Paul Jesson, Phil Daniels, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Sharp, Kathy Burke, Stephen Rea, Julie Walters – "comprises an impressive, almost representative, nucleus of outstanding British acting talent." Ian Buruma, writing in The New York Review of Books in January 1994, noted: "It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other wholly original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo." more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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