Steineded How sad is this?

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A_Different_Drummer UK films are not easily available on this side of the pond, so this reviewer was first exposed to Jane Horrocks in this wonderfully perfect little film, only to later catch her in Little Voice.To say she was brilliant in both films is an understatement. The odd thing is that the second film seems to be well-known worldwide but this one seems to have been lost in the shuffle.The genius here is taking a small but rock-solid cast and capturing the attention of the audience almost from the first scene, with the daily trials and tribulations of a family trying to survive the vicissitudes of the outside world and the internal prison of their own making.The entire cast is great, the writing sharp, the direction polished. But the performance from Horrocks -- and that voice! -- will haunt you forever.

beresfordjd I usually love Leigh's stuff. Grownups, Nuts in May and Abigail's Party are almost genius, but Life is Sweet is very disappointing. One can usually recognise the characters portrayed or even associate yourself with them or their situations but only Alison Steadman's character seems real. Jane Horrocks is really talented but her character here is too over the top with the most irritating voice since JarJar Binks!! Clare Skinner is good as Nicola's twin sister and they are uncannily alike. Yes they are ordinary working class people and their life is humdrum for the most part. Timothy Spall is wasted in an underplayed comic role which does not really work. The scene where Alison confronts her daughter, Nicola is a good one and reality shines through but for most of the film the parts are not as good as the whole.

itspoop this is another one of those movies that i loved so much the first time i saw it, i cried in the theater, went home, came back the next day with a friend in tow. unlike the other movies i did this with (raising Arizona, after hours), the person i saw it with actually got the movie the first time, and loved it as much as i did. yes, naked and Topsy turvy got all the praise, but this is my favorite Leigh movie. it is just so...sweet.i would talk about this movie years after seeing it saying that it was so heartbreakingly real, if you cut the screen, it would bleed. the was something so compelling about everyone in this movie. someone said they were pathetic, but i couldn't say i saw it like that. they were just flawed people doing the best they could. to me that is so beautiful. for years i would wish that America had a real working class director like mike Leigh. someone who showed people struggling. we need it so very badly, as the aftermath of Katrina can attest to. we forget our poor over here.the funniest thing was i wold watch this movie when i got depressed, and it made me feel less alone. it cheered me up.

Tony Walton Another reviewer has commented that this could be a fly-on-the-wall documentary rather than fiction. That hits the nail right on the head. I live some 5 miles from Enfield (where Life is Sweet was filmed) and this is completely true to life. No car chases, no martial artists, no expensive explosions, just life going on and (in the main) being fairly sweet. Everybody knows a Patsy who has a "little deal", everybody knows families like this one, everybody knows an Aubrey who never *quite* makes it. Mike Leigh knows what he's talking about, and it's enough to make a highly enjoyable movie that's worth seeing many times. I don't fancy Aubrey's "Saveloy on a bed of Lychees", though!