Another Year...Top Ten in Any Year
This is a film not unlike Blue Valentine, where every emotion being expressed on the screen is felt by the audience. The material is highly melodramatic, but realer and truer than any reality show or documentary. The performances are uniformly excellent, with a stand-out, memorable performance by Lesley Manville. Two of the biggest slights by the Oscar nominators this year were the elimation of both Ryan Gosling for Blue Valentine(how could Michelle Williams get a nomination but not him...basically a two character film) and Lesley Manville who should have replaced Nicole Kidman. Her performance is so real and hits every nerve in the viewers psyche that you come away with feelings of either pathos or utter hate for her character. Brillant!