What soured Mike Leigh on Life Is Sweet? Earlier this year the British writer-director recorded a commentary for the Criterion Collection DVD of his 1990 drama, and at the very end, as the credits are about to roll, he admits that it’s his least favorite of the films he’s made. Leigh doesn’t explain, and earlier in the commentary he seems quite proud of, even moved by, certain moments. I suppose that’s the luxury of being Britain’s greatest living filmmaker: when you’ve got a track record that includes Secrets & Lies (1996), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), and Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), you can afford to be picky. Life Is Sweet may be a minor film for Leigh, more loosely plotted even than some of his early TV movies for the BBC, but by any other measure it’s a wonder, with unforgettable characters and a distinctive mix of comedy and real sorrow.
Life Is Sweet came along during a run of international dramas that associated food with love: Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (1985), Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast (1987), Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman (1994). Yet for Andy, who hates his restaurant job, that love is less romantic than paternal: he shows his love for Wendy and the twins through the simple but crucial act of putting food on the table. Weaving through Life Is Sweet are two comic story lines involving the food business: Andy’s shifty drinking buddy, Patsy (Stephen Rea), cons him into buying a dilapidated snack-vending trailer, which Andy hopes to turn into a profitable side business, and Wendy, helping out their crackpot friend Aubrey (Timothy Spall), agrees to wait tables at his new restaurant, the Regret Rien (“regret nothing,” after the old Edith Piaf song). Both enterprises seem doomed to failure, but Andy and Aubrey are limited men in dire need of a dream.
Directed by Mike Leigh
