Vera (played with impeccable <\/strong>nuance <\/strong>by Imelda Staunton) is a housekeeper, wife, and mother in London in 1950. She is unfailingly cheery and caring. Walking through her dingy neighborhood in her sensible cloth coat and battered leather bag, she drops in on her sick neighbors and takes in strays, inviting lonely men over for tea. Whether she\u2019s teasing her happy family over a meal or warmly greeting the employer who barely acknowledges her existence, she remains sunny and stalwart. Vera takes pride and joy in providing for others. <\/strong>\u201cShe\u2019s a diamond,\u201d her husband <\/strong>Stan <\/strong>says, and there\u2019s no better word to describe her. Her shining face lights up the darkness of her working-class, post-War neighborhood. The homes are drab and cramped, the traumas of the war linger, and ongoing rationing means that everyone must scrimp to buy small luxuries off the black market. But Vera beams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in her spare time, without payment, Vera provides abortions. Because of the way the subject has been twisted and politicized, <\/strong>every film depicting abortion ends up being about<\/em> abortion<\/em>. While abortion is undoubtedly the subject <\/em>here, Leigh is remarkably successful at making it seem like just a part of everyday life. We don\u2019t see it happen until twenty minutes in, and it\u2019s sandwiched between everyday scenes of Vera\u2019s family at home and work. Vera\u2019s patients are often frightened, but the scenes never tip over into histrionics. The procedure (which involves an enema syringe, disinfectant, and carbolic soap) <\/strong>is depicted and described matter-of-factly. Vera\u2019s sunny demeanor is reliably comforting, but also brisk: since what she does is illegal, she can\u2019t afford to linger or get too personal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s clear that, <\/strong>for Vera, what she does is not a political act; it is just another way of caring for others. \u201cI help young girls out,\u201d she says, \u201cwhen they can\u2019t manage.\u201d This changes radically when one of Vera\u2019s patients nearly dies from complications and the police get involved. Vera, whose British propriety means she speaks euphemistically, bristles when her interrogating officer brings up the A-word: \u201cThat\u2019s not what I do, dear. That\u2019s what you call it, but they need help.\u201d By the time of Vera\u2019s arrest, we know her and her intentions so well that the law\u2019s view of her as a dangerous radical seems absurd and profoundly unjust. Perhaps this is why Vera Drake<\/em> is one of Leigh\u2019s less-remembered films. From this point on, he plays Vera\u2019s story as an old-fashioned melodrama of suffering and injustice. It\u2019s striking from a director known for his realistic portrayals of ordinary life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The melodrama is the \u201cwoman\u2019s picture,\u201d and Staunton\u2019s performance undoubtedly makes the movie. Neither she nor Vera are glamorous figures, but her performance has a charisma and towering emotionality that evokes the genre\u2019s classic era. Staunton flaunts the notion that screen acting is about doing less, always finding new depths of feeling to plumb as Vera\u2019s ordeal gets worse. She always finds more tears and more <\/strong>bewilderment as Vera goes through the indignities of her arrest (removing her stockings, losing it when she has to take off her wedding ring). Just when it\u2019s impossible to imagine how she could crumple more, or retreat further into herself, Staunton finds some way to sag and shrink and break your heart all over again. Her Vera is an ordinary woman totally overwhelmed by the unjust circumstances that have made her desire to help both unsafe and criminal. Staunton shows the depths and dimensions of her sorrow\u2014guilt that a woman has almost died, shame at being treated like a criminal, despair about what will happen to her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Family lies at the heart of Vera Drake<\/em>. Her initially shell-shocked family\u2019s acceptance of what she\u2019s done and how she\u2019s done it mirrors Vera\u2019s refusal to judge any of her patients. Their support in her moment of need reflects the care she showed these women in desperate times in their lives. Stan (Phil Davis) instantly recognizes that Vera\u2019s work is just another facet of her caring nature and stands by her even as he\u2019s terrified. Her son Sid (Daniel Mays) disagrees with Vera\u2019s actions while still loving her and promising to help support the family. It\u2019s impossible not to tear up when her soon-to-be-son-in-law Reg (Eddie Marsan) loyally thanks Vera for a wonderful dinner when the whole family is celebrating Christmas in misery. Leigh has always painted rich portraits of family life. If he\u2019d slacked on any of that here, the melodrama would sink, and he\u2019d have failed to get at the everyday truths about reproductive health choices. He relies, as always, on careful work with a fine ensemble cast, also including Alex Kelly as Vera\u2019s painfully shy daughter Ethel and Adrian Scarborough as the brother-in-law she helped raise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vera Drake <\/em>obviously hits in painful and maddening ways in a post-Dobbs<\/em> hellscape. Everything in it that was once easier to see as the brutality of the past is poised to become our future. Today it can only prompt rage and despair that can\u2019t be easily channeled. Things look so intractably bleak that you can\u2019t help wondering if even a film this good makes any difference. Of course, art must be allowed to exist for its own sake, and as a portrait of how cruel laws ignore the complexity and rich texture of human lives, you can\u2019t do much better. To become numb would be unforgivable, and Vera Drake<\/em> insists that we keep raging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Vera Drake” is streaming on Netflix<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/vera2-1024x678.jpg\")
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