Page 12 - Fujifilm Exposure_48 Tamara Drewe_ok

“THE HARDEST THING IS MAINTAINING A CONSISTENCY THROUGHOUT
THE FILM AS THE STORY UNFOLDS AND TAKES SHAPE. AS WE DON’T WORK IN A STUDIO, THE NATURAL LIGHT CONDITIONS NEVER STOP CHANGING.”
➤ One could expand on that a bit by explaining that the film mainly centres on a happily married middle-aged couple, drolly called Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen), as they interact, happily and sometimes unhappily, with family and friends across a year of, shall we say, real life.
To say any more would be to spoil the kind of revelations – from laugh-out-loud moments to deep melancholy – that inevitably emerge in a Leigh film, which, as ever, according to the man himself, “celebrates the lives of normal ordinary people.”
If one of the starting points for their last film Happy-Go-Lucky – like
all their previous films a prolific awards winner – was Youth then this time round there was, admits Leigh, a distinct feeling at the outset of “let’s do Us a bit.” Stir in “age and time” as well as a desire to cast Broadbent, a regular, with David Bradley who was making his Leigh debut.
Also developing out of the ‘process’ – which involves, among many things, months of rehearsal and character development with the selected actors – was also the complex role of Mary (Lesley Manville, another Leigh returnee), an old Tom and Gerri friend with distinct issues.
Explains Leigh: “When I was conceiving how to make the narrative work which apart from anything else was to explore Mary who doesn’t, for various reasons, visit Tom and Gerri very often, as a central dynamic, it became clear we’d have to have a longer time
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