Synopsis
Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Imelda StauntonVera Drake
- Phil DavisStan
- Sally HawkinsSusan Wells
- Daniel MaysSid
- Eddie MarsanReg
- Alex KellyEthel
- Ruth SheenLily
- Adrian ScarboroughFrank
- Heather CraneyJoyce
- Lesley ManvilleMrs. Wells
Recommendations
- 100
Variety
Mike Leigh is at the peak of his powers with Vera Drake, a compassionate, morally complex drama that stands easily alongside his best work, "Secrets & Lies" and "Topsy-Turvy." - 100
Village Voice
Vera Drake puts the passion in compassion. Building up to a shattering conclusion, Leigh's movie is both outrageously schematic and powerfully humanist. - 100
Entertainment Weekly
Stunning and compassionate period drama. - 100
Christian Science Monitor
The acting is brilliant and Leigh's screenplay - developed through his usual process of improvisation and rehearsal - is very long on compassion, very short on preaching and politics. - 90
The New York Times
The English director Mike Leigh's best work in a decade. - 88
Rolling Stone
Using Staunton's face as his canvas, Leigh crafts a powerfully moving film that is unmissable and unforgettable. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
It's difficult to think of another recent film so seamlessly rendered or that envelops an audience so completely in its period authenticity. - 80
The New Yorker
Marvellous, though it is smaller in emotional range than such earlier Mike Leigh films as the goofy bourgeois satire "High Hopes" (1988), the candid and piercing "Secrets & Lies" (1996), and the splendid theatrical spectacle "Topsy-Turvy" (1999).
