Vera Drake : 81 for 81

Vera Drake

Vera Drake is the story of two women and their experiences with abortion in England in the 1950's.  One is our title character Vera Drake, a lower class older woman who "helps young girls out" by performing syringe abortions.  She also cares for her family and everyone and anyone she can.  The other character is Susan. A rich society girl that gets pregnant and seeks out an abortion in a clinic of sorts, with a doctor - an illegal privilege for the rich. As Susan successfully takes care of her problem, Vera is caught when one of her young girls gets sick.   She is arrested, much to the dismay of her family.

Beyond the amazing performances and stellar period decor, Mike Leigh's Oscar® nominated film does something many films don't - look at a controversial issue in a way that truly examines the complexity of it.  There are no heroes or demons in this film, only people stuck in specific circumstances and doing the best the can.   By juxtaposing Vera's story with Susan's we can't simply judge Vera or Vera's society - we are forced to consider how the issue of abortion exists in a larger scale world.  A world of different classes.

Also, Leigh, as New York Times critic Manohla Dargis points out, seeks out the good in a world that sometimes seems to feature so little:

Mr. Leigh's commitment to exposing all the pain the world has to offer, to showing, as Eliot wrote, the skull beneath the skin, is partly what defines him as a filmmaker. But what defines Mr. Leigh as an artist are those times, as in "Vera Drake," when his conscience and his art shake loose rancor and the filmmaker embraces the possibility of good not just in himself, but in others.

And good, I think,  is something we need to see more of in people.

Watch this film to see how it pushed the envelope and then takepart with Planned Parenthood.

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