[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now designated the Official Discussion Thread for "Vera Drake" please, post all comments, links to outside reviews, film and box office discussion items to this thread.

All HTF member film reviews of "Vera Drake" should be posted to the Official Review Thread.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.


Crawdaddy

[Henry Gale]

So, this is perhaps an indelicate request, but, where might one go to actually find other cinemagoers who have seen Vera Drake?
You know, another forum maybe.
Not that HTF isn't home, it is.
But no one at home has posted regarding this flick.
So......:b

[ChrisMatson]

I saw it last week and thought the acting was excellent. The movie fosters thought and discussion on both sides of the delicate issue of abortion.

I thought the acting was uniformly outstanding. The hard work that went into developing characters and the shooting script come through.

Highly recommended viewing.

[Kirk Tsai]

Having only known that Vera Drake was about a character who performed abortions, I was unprepared for the the vivid family life it protrayed. The film really works because the family is so well established before the most important turn of events. The way the family members reacted to events were Ozu-esque, if he were a Westerner.

[ChrisMatson]

From what I have read, none of the actors knew why Vera Drake was arrested until shortly before they filmed. Those reactions are based on months of character development while working on a shooting script. Unconventional to be sure, but it makes for quite a payoff.

Quote:

As always, too, Leigh draws exceptional performances from a familiar cast, and the performance of a lifetime from Staunton. The protracted scene in which Vera tries to tell her husband why she has been arrested and incarcerated is cinema at its most powerfully intimate and intimately powerful, Staunton's stricken face and faltering words remaining in the mind long after the credits have rolled. The end result emerged out of months of improvisation, the actors creating their characters from scratch, and working to one of Leigh's cardinal rules; that the actor never knows more than the character he or she portrays.

'The only person who knows the bigger picture during all those months of preparation is Mike,' says Phil Davis, who plays Stan, Vera's husband. 'I was totally immersed in Stan's character to the point that I knew what he had done in the war, I knew he was an orphan, but, until very close to the moment we started actually shooting, I had no idea of the plot.'