VERA DRAKE
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Fine Line Features
Grade: A-
Directed by: Mike Leigh
Written by: Mike Leigh
Cast: Imelda Staunton, Philip Davis, Peter Wight, Adrian
Scarborough, Heather Craney, Daniel Mays, Alex Kelly
Screened at: Angelika, NYC, 10/10/04
It would take somebody with a heart of ice (George W. Bush, for
example), to feel anything but compassion for the title character
of Mike Leigh's film, "Vera Drake." Imelda Staunton launches
an Oscar-worthy performance as Mrs. Drake, a domestic who
"helps out young women in trouble," as she describes her off-job
activities–which for twenty years consist of giving abortions to
women who for one reason or another do not want to bring their
pregnancies to term.
Abortions became legal in Great Britain only in 1967 but under
an archaic law that entered the books in 1861, anyone who
operates in the category of abortionist could be held guilty of a
crime with one exception: the rich could get away with ending
their pregnancies by visiting a doctor, who would send the
woman to a psychiatrist, who would then certify that the would-
be mother was suicidal and that therefore, the mother's health
would be, of course, in danger. (Here in the U.S., a recent
federal law banning so-called partial birth abortions was
allegedly passed to stop the practice of expelling a fetus in the
third trimester, but a federal judge declared the law
unconstitutional in that no exception was made for the health of
the mother. Why no exception? Obviously the pro-lifers who
pushed for the law realized that any prospective mother could
simply threaten to kill herself, whether the claim were valid or
not, thereby rendering the law useless.)
Mike Leigh gives his latest film a firm set of place, in the London
of 1950, where working class folks were content to live in "cozy"
tenement flats, the lucky ones drinking tea–lucky because a
recession in the sceptered isle caused sugar and tea to be
rationed, while some individuals are able to get around the
requirement through black market operations.
The particular house run by Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) and
her husband, Stan (Phil Davis), makes room for two grown
children, Sid (Daniel Mays), who measures moneyed people for
custom-made suits, and Ethel (Alex Kelly), who tests light bulbs
for a living and is so shy that she rarely has a word to say
throughout the story. While these are all decent, working class
folks, Vera is exceptional, given the way she takes time to visit
two shut-ins, one of whom is her chronically depressed mother.
Now in her late middle age, she allows for some cuddling with
her husband and makes sure to invite for tea a prospective
suitor for Ethel.
The problem is that what makes her truly saintly is that for
twenty years she has been performing abortions set up for her
by an intermediary, Lily (Ruth Sheen), who pockets money
though Vera, never aware of this skimming, does not accept a
shilling. When one young woman develops complications after
Vera does her routine job of inserting disinfectant and carbolic
soap through a syringe, she is busted when a two detectives, a
bobby, and a police-woman enter her home and read her the
riot act.
There are a couple of gaps in logic which can be overlooked,
given that the story really is about Ms. Staunton's performance
and certainly not of the crime genre. It's questionable that she
could perform these abortions for two decades without anyone's
suspecting her, not her husband or either or her two grown
children. Also one would imagine that in a London
neighborhood of row houses, gossip would get around in short
order, perhaps when a prospective father, furious that his mate
had this procedure, would make sure to nail the culprit who
performed the homely operation.
For Mike Leigh, this was a subject bound to interest him, given
that he is himself a doctor's son and was raised in a working-
class family. His films regularly attest to his anger at the ways
the underclass and the under-educated are treated in England.
In "Vera Drake" we note that the police do not bother to read her
her rights, but rather, in a clinically proficient manner, feigning
sympathy, they evoke a ready confession from the poor woman.
Leigh treats the rich as though they were bourgeois parasites,
walking around in their furs. In one dramatic segment, a preppy
date for Susan (Sally Hawkins) the daughter of a rich woman
she works, rapes the shy young woman, who instead of
reporting the scuzz is forwarded to a hospital by a wealth, well-
connected friend, where her abortion is tended to by several
doctors and nurses, including one psychiatrist who certifies her
as suicidal.
While the ensemble evokes the rhythms and small talk of
working class life, Imelda Staunton's performance anchors the
production. Staunton changes radically from a happy-go-lucky
care-giver, always ready to put up some water in the kettle, to a
broken down victim of an unjust society, crying and whispering
through the criminal proceedings that will do her in. For a film
depicting a similar injustice, you'd want to turn your attention to
Claude Chabrol's "Une affaire de femmes," starring Isabel
Huppert as a woman who performed abortions during the
German occupation of France and became the last person
guillotined in that country.
Not Rated. 125 Minutes © Harvey Karten
at harveycritic@cs.com
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