A New Horror Genre: Don’t Fret, Friends, Things Will Get Worse

I have two theories about Mike Leigh’s “Another Year.” The first is that it is the single most depressing film ever made. How depressing is it? It’s so depressing it makes “Sid and Nancy” look like “Mary Poppins.” Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are an infuriatingly well-adjusted couple in their early 60s, or thereabouts. He’s a geologist; she’s a counselor. They live in London and get a lot of satisfaction out of their allotment (a community vegetable garden). Mary (Lesley Manville) is a single woman who works as a secretary at Gerri’s office. She’s been unlucky in love, she drinks too much, smokes too much and she’s miserable. Tom and Gerri have her over fairly often, even though she’s a bit of a drag. Plus she develops a crush on their 30-year old son Joe (Oliver Maltman). But Joe finds a perky girlfriend, and Mary’s fantasy crumbles. Adding to the joy and merriment, Ken (Peter Wight) shows up for a visit. He’s a contemporary of Tom and Gerri’s, a fat sweating civil servant who drinks too much, smokes too much, talks with his mouth full, and hey — he’s miserable too. So maybe Mary and Ken will get together, right? Nope, that would end the misery too soon. He makes a clumsy pass and his fantasy crumbles as well. Just for laughs, Tom’s sister-in-law dies, and the family has to schlep off to some dingy place for the funeral with Tom’s shell-shocked brother Ron, played with catatonic aplomb by David Bradley. Ron’s wayward son Carl (Martin Savage) shows up late and is rude to everybody. (I rather took to Carl; he arrived at about the 90-minute mark and I was hoping he’d take a poke at someone.)The final episode has Mary showing up unannounced at the happy home of Tom and Gerri. She looks like hell. That’s about it. The scenes are drawn out and absolutely torturous to watch. Imagine the most awkward social faux pas in your past, the one that still has the power, decades later, to make you cringe. Now multiply that feeling by a factor of 17,000, spread it out over two hours of screen time and you’ll get the drift. In fairness, the cast is completely convincing. At no time did I doubt that Carl was a creep, that Mary was on the verge of something bad, that Joe and his girlfriend Katie (Karina Fernandez) were in the “acting in a moderately sickening manner” stage of their new relationship, that Ken was looking at a dismal end, and that Tom and Gerri both needed a kick in the pants for being so disgustingly well-adjusted. So if you’re in the market for a slice of life, you’ll love this film. My alternate theory is that Leigh has created something entirely new in the horror genre — a film in which perfectly ordinary citizens, with everyday problems, are driven insane by a couple who seem prosperous, generous and, yes, well-adjusted. In reality, however, they are cunning monsters who know that the slightest proximity to their idyllic life will send their slightly neurotic friends and acquaintances completely round the bend. And that’s how I would have written it. I am inclined toward the second theory, because Tom and Gerri damn near claimed me as a victim. If “Another Year” had gone on another second, well...

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