Mike Leigh has directed thirteen features. He has won two Palmes d'Or, multiple BAFTAs, and an Oscar nomination for Vera Drake. He made Secrets & Lies, Naked, Another Year, Hard Truths. By most measures, he is the most consistently important British filmmaker of the last forty years.
This weekend, Tender Loving Care screens at the BFI London Film Festival. It is, according to Leigh himself, very likely his last film. He has myositis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the muscles, and told IndieWire: "Absolutely. I think very likely, yes." He said he was "lucky" to have made it at all, crediting the people on set who helped him stand.
The film follows Amy (Kate O'Flynn), a child welfare social worker, who moves in with her best friend Rosie (Alice Bailey Johnson), a hospital social worker, after a breakup. Amy's father (Paul Jesson) develops health problems. Nothing explodes. Nobody transforms overnight. Leigh's semi-improvised process produces a script that reads like overheard conversation, all the weight carried underneath.
The A.V. Club gave it a B+, calling it a "gentle, profound heartbreaker." Leigh received a standing ovation at its London homecoming premiere on October 15. Tender Loving Care opens in the US on December 4 through Bleecker Street.
A two-time Palme d'Or winner is finishing his career with an intimate film about the social care system. The film is quiet. The conversation around it has been quieter.
