The first question is: is the title ironic or sincere? I think for Leigh there's not an ironic bone in his body, and this is despite (or maybe because?) of the fact that his film, like many of his others, are people who may be pleasant and joyful and get by just fine but others are probably, maybe, definitely, messed up. But he loves all of the people in the worlds he creates - and, as has been reported to death, how his process is one where he makes it totally inclusive with the actors as they develop characters and the scenarios over a year or so - and it's usually a matter of... how does this person realize the other needs or wants something, desperately, simply? Life is Sweet is a wonderful example of the kind of film Mike Leigh is usually associated with making, and is deeper and (in a good way) more difficult emotionally than you might expect on first glance.
The family includes Wendy, the mother (Steadman), father Andy (Broadbent), and twin daughters Natalie and Nicola (Skinner and Harrocks respectively). They seem to be a fairly conventional (lower) middle class family in a town in England, where Andy has some big ideas for a food truck he buys sort of on a whim from slightly-shady, so-dated-in-a-windbreaker Stephen Rea (so unlike how I've seen him in other parts, which is great), and Wendy, who sometimes works with kids but also tries to help friend(?) of the family Aubrey (Timothy Spall in a delightfully daffy, sometimes angry and occasionally drunk performance unlike any I've seen before) who tries to open his own restaurant, is the kind of person you or I know who laughs at a lot of things. Sometimes, whether intentional or unintentional, that includes the daughter Nicola who is, really, the depressed and tortured heart of the film.
Oh, she might bring some of it on herself, one might say, seeing as she's an anorexic/bulimic girl (only the sister seems to know she does this, hearing her vomit in her bedroom next over, or at least is the only one who asks), and from the start she comes off as, to put it lightly, a basket case. But Leigh not once, not ever, does he judge her as a filmmaker - some of the other characters might, but that's another matter, and one that creates some mild comic but also dramatic tension in some scenes - as she comes off as pushy and antagonistic, but also that she is so young and mixed up in a lot of ways, not the least sexually (her scenes with Thewlis as her sort- of-boyfriend have a sharp charge of energy between them, how he's with her and why he puts up with her, or why she allows him to say the things he does, is fascinating).
And Harrocks gives it her all, and I'm sure that delighted Leigh to see what lengths she as well as Spall and, in their own way, Broadbent and Steadman went in their performances. The main problem that the characters face here, or at least the mother does as someone who has emotional intelligence but not always the words to communicate well, is how to speak how they're actually feeling. It's not just a British thing either, it's universal for parents to not always know what to say to their children, if they're not as functional as they're expected or a bit "unusual." But it's more than that too; throughout the film we're seeing people trying to have what they want, whether it's the father with his food truck (it's a fixer-upper, and some day he'll do it, maybe), or Aubrey with his restaurant that (on the first night, but we may think it'll be this way for a while) no one comes in, or some others.
The focus is small and the character moments are all intimate in one way or another, and it eventually does build to a very dramatic moment between mother and daughter. What's remarkable is that it's not the kind of ending that might come in a lessor (maybe American?) movie where things end neat and tidy; there's the sense that there is still a *lot* of work to be done between these characters, and this family, and with Nicola and her uncertainty about herself (whether that involves therapy who can say), but it's really about... start trying, and work from there.
One last thing - Dick Pope was cinematographer on this. Seeing this just a week after seeing Baby Driver again... this man was versatile as all get out. What an amazing eye and gift with a camera; and here it's subtle because it's so character driven, but every moment has motivation, every time he and Leigh stay on a character or two characters it matters.
The family includes Wendy, the mother (Steadman), father Andy (Broadbent), and twin daughters Natalie and Nicola (Skinner and Harrocks respectively). They seem to be a fairly conventional (lower) middle class family in a town in England, where Andy has some big ideas for a food truck he buys sort of on a whim from slightly-shady, so-dated-in-a-windbreaker Stephen Rea (so unlike how I've seen him in other parts, which is great), and Wendy, who sometimes works with kids but also tries to help friend(?) of the family Aubrey (Timothy Spall in a delightfully daffy, sometimes angry and occasionally drunk performance unlike any I've seen before) who tries to open his own restaurant, is the kind of person you or I know who laughs at a lot of things. Sometimes, whether intentional or unintentional, that includes the daughter Nicola who is, really, the depressed and tortured heart of the film.
Oh, she might bring some of it on herself, one might say, seeing as she's an anorexic/bulimic girl (only the sister seems to know she does this, hearing her vomit in her bedroom next over, or at least is the only one who asks), and from the start she comes off as, to put it lightly, a basket case. But Leigh not once, not ever, does he judge her as a filmmaker - some of the other characters might, but that's another matter, and one that creates some mild comic but also dramatic tension in some scenes - as she comes off as pushy and antagonistic, but also that she is so young and mixed up in a lot of ways, not the least sexually (her scenes with Thewlis as her sort- of-boyfriend have a sharp charge of energy between them, how he's with her and why he puts up with her, or why she allows him to say the things he does, is fascinating).
And Harrocks gives it her all, and I'm sure that delighted Leigh to see what lengths she as well as Spall and, in their own way, Broadbent and Steadman went in their performances. The main problem that the characters face here, or at least the mother does as someone who has emotional intelligence but not always the words to communicate well, is how to speak how they're actually feeling. It's not just a British thing either, it's universal for parents to not always know what to say to their children, if they're not as functional as they're expected or a bit "unusual." But it's more than that too; throughout the film we're seeing people trying to have what they want, whether it's the father with his food truck (it's a fixer-upper, and some day he'll do it, maybe), or Aubrey with his restaurant that (on the first night, but we may think it'll be this way for a while) no one comes in, or some others.
The focus is small and the character moments are all intimate in one way or another, and it eventually does build to a very dramatic moment between mother and daughter. What's remarkable is that it's not the kind of ending that might come in a lessor (maybe American?) movie where things end neat and tidy; there's the sense that there is still a *lot* of work to be done between these characters, and this family, and with Nicola and her uncertainty about herself (whether that involves therapy who can say), but it's really about... start trying, and work from there.
One last thing - Dick Pope was cinematographer on this. Seeing this just a week after seeing Baby Driver again... this man was versatile as all get out. What an amazing eye and gift with a camera; and here it's subtle because it's so character driven, but every moment has motivation, every time he and Leigh stay on a character or two characters it matters.