All or Nothing 2002

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: These characters are beyond hope -- and caring about. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Grueling, heavy-handed, and surprisingly insight-free. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The film feels uncomfortably real, its language and locations bearing the unmistakable stamp of authority. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: It's so realistic and the performances are so dead on. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A triumph, a film that hews out a world and carries us effortlessly from darkness to light. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: [Generosity] seems to resonate in Andrew Dickson's sweet, melancholy score, in Dick Pope's tactfully beautiful images and in every frame of this sad, resolute film. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The resolution -- which I won't describe, as it's something to see -- is extremely moving. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: A tough go, but Leigh's depth and rigor, and his skill at inspiring accomplished portrayals that are all the more impressive for their lack of showiness, offsets to a notable degree the film's often-mined and despairing milieu. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: Leigh makes these lives count. And he allows a gawky actor like Spall -- who could too easily become comic relief in any other film -- to reveal his impressively delicate range. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: With one exception, every blighter in this particular South London housing project digs into dysfunction like it's a big, comforting jar of Marmite, to be slathered on crackers and served as a feast of bleakness. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Everything you've come to expect, and cherish, in a Mike Leigh movie. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: The more you think about the movie, the more you will probably like it. Read more

John Patterson, L.A. Weekly: A strangely stirring experience that finds warmth in the coldest environment and makes each crumb of emotional comfort feel like a 10-course banquet. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Mike Leigh goes spelunking in search of the English soul, finds gold. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: For close to two hours the audience is forced to endure three terminally depressed, mostly inarticulate, hyper dysfunctional families for the price of one. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: These people are real as few movie characters ever are. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: Leigh's daring here is that without once denying the hardscrabble lives of people on the economic fringes of Margaret Thatcher's ruinous legacy, he insists on the importance of those moments when people can connect and express their love for each other. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle: We're back on the social and emotional turf that Leigh knows best. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Leigh uses a somber cello-rich score to infuse this quotidian suffering with a mystical edge and high-culture gloss -- and yet, thanks to the generally enthusiastic performing, the movie borders on farce. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Leigh has created another remarkable work, up there with his best. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Leigh's sympathy for the working poor is unmistakable and unassailable, but the tragic grandeur with which he imbues their pain hovers dangerously close to condescension. Read more