Review of Another Year (2010) by Itai B — 21 Nov 2011

I watched this film at face value, meaning that I knew nothing of the Directors style of gritty honest drama, or the the list of actors within. My review is therefore unbiased by such factors.

I found the acting to be excellent and the characters portrayed to be completely believeable. The story was interesting enough to keep me watching until the very end, although it was a longer film than I first assumed, and by the end, the clock on the wall had far passed 2 am.

My only complaint is that the film and its honest representation of alcoholic misery is not what I would term entertainment - the world is too full of such tragedy for there to be a need to create any more of it. The dingy flats, deaths, jealousy, bad luck, bitterness, the grey skies, the sorrow and the depression had me hoping for a ray of light at the end of it all - some glimmer of hope for Mary - but no. The film ends on her, looking just as bitter as she had been for the past 20 minutes.

Though the film triumphantly achieves what it set out to portray, the optimistic side of me wished that a little happiness at the end would allieviate the 2 hour streak of true life misery. I do not understand peoples attraction to other peoples pain. The film gets 5 stars, as I feel it did what was intended. I do however think that, had some characters improved their situation or connected with each other in a positive manner at the finale, the film would have been much more rewarding to the audience. For example Toms brother and Mary may have found each other in need of consolation - him losing his wife and her having been left by her husband - not necessarily a relationship, but a bond that mutually helps them get back on top of life. Something - anything - aside from the limbo the film leaves you hanging in, not knowing whether there is hope, or suicide around the next corner.

Everyone loves a happy ending, and after 2 hours of bitterness and grief, the audience deserves one. No one goes to the movies to feel worse than when they went in.