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VERA DRAKE Send This Review to a Friend
A highlight of the 2004 New York Film Festival and a highlight by any other measurement, Mike Leigh’s “Vera Drake” recalls the early 1950s in Britain when abortion was still illegal and cloaked in secrecy, with the poor having to resort to more dangerous situations while the well-heeled had better, if still secret, options. Not a polemic, the film deals with the subject through dramatic human terms and offers a stunning, wrenching performance by Imelda Staunton.
The prolific actress has the movie part of a lifetime. And she delivers. Staunton plays Vera, a working-class women with a husband and children, who is a neighborly do-gooder, a kindly, busy-busy woman who looks in on people who are ill, works as a cleaning woman in wealthy homes and rushes back to her own modest flat to prepare meals for her closely knit family. It comes as a jolt when on one seemingly routine visit, she proceeds to perform an abortion. Her family knows nothing of her activities, in which she has been engaged for years.
Vera doesn’t take any money, although the greedy woman who gives her the names of those who need help does, but without telling Vera, whose motive is only to assist women in trouble. We sense, of course, that something is about to happen, and it does, as a result of one of Vera’s pregnancy interventions that nearly leads to a death. Soon the police come knocking.
Leigh, who also wrote the script and built the drama with the aid of his cast, keeps the action straightforward and simple, with very little use of music. The approach is extremely realistic, with reliance on the basic situation and strong performances to make the impact. Leigh doesn’t make the police or lawyers villains. They are just doing their jobs and even feel sympathetic to Vera, which adds further to the pathos of the situation.
The drama does the service of making us recall the horrors of making abortion illegal and prompting us to realize anew what the situation could be again if those attacking a woman’s right to choose were to get their way. “Vera Drake” is also a family drama, involving questions of loyalty and coming to terms with an unexpected crisis and the challenge it brings. The film also hints at an explanation of why Vera started performing abortions in the first place. It doesn’t provide an answer, but the look on her face in response to a particular police question is revealing, thanks to the extraordinarily poignant performance by the gifted Staunton. A Fine Line Features release.
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