Vera Drake

I wonder why they chose a January release date for Mike Leigh’s Golden Lion winner? Surely no Christmas is complete without a tragic tale of backstreet abortion in the pre-pre-Carnaby London of 1960? Actually, though no barrel of monkeys, Vera Drake is nowhere nearly as depressing as its grim subject matter might suggest.

Set against a compellingly dowdy world of bartered tea, dripping, nylons for sex, Vim and Ogden chintz, our eponymous heroine (Staunton) is a kindly, well-meaning charlady whose generosity extends to nursing the infirmed, visiting the lonely and helping young girls “what got themselves in trouble.”

Though her family, including doting husband Stan (Davis), son and cheeky North London chappy, Sid (Mays), and sloping, becardiganed daughter, Ethel (Kelly), remain blissfully unaware of their mother’s gynaecological sideline, generally they seem like such a happy, well-adjusted bunch, you wonder how on earth they’ve wound up in a Mike Leigh film. Indeed, even after things are complicated by an inevitable revelation, the Drakes remain far better company than Stan’s avaricious, peroxide sister-in-law (“I want twenty five pounds far a washing machine please”) or any of Vera’s cold middle-class employers.

“What have you got to be sorry about love,” Stan mumbles, upon discovering Vera’s secret. Unfortunately, the police are less inclined to agree, and take her in under the Offences Against The Person Act of 1861.

A fascinating and affecting time capsule, Vera Drake recalls something of Terence Davis’ work with its nostalgic portrayal of a post-war Britain wherein everyone swaps sad tales of the Blitz, Normandy and National Service. In keeping with the Leigh hard-line, the upper classes are a snooty, worthless lot, and their expensive legal circumvention of the abortion experience – as revealed through the daughter of one of Vera’s employers – reeks of inequality.

While such arguments are subtly rehearsed on screen to the detriment of family get-togethers, Staunton’s quietly canny performance provides Vera Drake with an affecting centre. Though there’s a lot less shouting and raging (er, none in fact), in her own pinafored way, our put upon heroine is every bit as mesmerising as Albert Finney once was in the similarly themed Saturday Night And Sunday Morning.

It all makes for eminently watchable drama once your eyes have adjusted to all the drab green and brown wallpaper on offer.

125mins. cert 15pg. Opens January 7th