Ah, but consider what Mary is having to listen to. Tom and Gerri recollecting their extensive travelling memories; Joe and Katie anticipating their trip to Paris; the sound of the older and younger couples bonding further. When Mary participates briefly in the conversation and talks about her time spent working on a Greek island the emphasis swiftly changes back to the two couples again. She looks for some kind of response from Ronnie with a quick searching smile, but he has retreated into one of his stony silences.
It seems to me that just before the camera settles onto her face for the lingering closes shot, Mary's chugging down her wine tells us a great deal about what she imagines for her future. That is much more of what we have just witnessed over the proceeding four seasons, only this time her connection to the family seeming less certain. There is of course a chance she can stop being so self involved, co-dependent on others and turn things around for herself, and not necessarily by accepting Gerri's advice to seek professional help, but as the light fades around her and the chatter of conversation diminishes under the melancholy music, she appears anything but optimistic, her eyes as dull and depressed as Janet's in the film's opening scene. If she has gained new insight into the reality of her life, it's a bleak one.
Mike Leigh said he felt Another Year is both optimistic and pessimistic, and it's up to us to decide for ourselves which of his characters these states apply to. Yet I couldn't ignore two seemingly slight, but recurring gestures that offer a grim warning of what may be in store for Mary unless she can change her circumstances:
The first is when Mary arrives at Tom and Gerri's early on in the film, and is exasperated with herself for her inappropriate choice of wine. She then mimes putting a gun to her head. A second after, and behind her back, Gerri mimics her gesture. Then towards the end of the film there is a variation on this when Joe and Katie arrive for a family get-together, and when Katie learns that a morose Mary has made an unannounced visit stretches her long scarf to indicate being hung. I've referred to this in other posts, and the responses were that Katie, who has already had a rather strained encounter with Mary, is miming that she finds Mary depressing to an extreme. I still maintain Katie is inferring that Mary is indeed depressed and hysterical to the degree that she could easily become suicidal. Or to put it another way, "Oh no, it's the suicidal woman!" Katie means it to be humorous gesture of course, and so it is in a grimly comic way because it is surely an aspect of Mary that has crossed our minds as well.
With this uncomfortable thought in mind I viewed Mary's baleful stare and darkening of the room with a sense of alarm, not least due to Lesley Manville's fantastically believable performance in bringing to life a thoroughly irritating yet ultimately sympathetic and very human character.
"What would Alain de Botton do? An evil Alain de Botton?"
reply
share