Vera Drake

Herald rating: * * * * *

Some films mock the words that may be deployed to describe them and this, Mike Leigh's feature, is one such. The British master of bleak dramas of working-class life seemed to have reached his peak in Secrets and Lies but Vera Drake transcends anything he's done because it's a film as much of love as of anger.

The dedication to his late parents - "a doctor and a midwife" - may be a clue. Vera Drake is not without the politicised rage that has been the driving force of everything Leigh has done. But even though the film is like a train crashing in slow motion, it brims with such humanity that it is an utterly uplifting experience.

Its title character is a bustling working-class housewife who helps neighbours, nurses her elderly mother, and invites lonely bachelors to dinner. At home she cares for her mechanic husband Stan (Phil Davis) and her two adult kids, the cheerful Sid (Mays) and the shy Ethel (Kelly).

Two or three times a week she performs an abortion.

These home procedures are depicted in a way that glosses over the considerable pain they would have involved - this is not documentary but human drama. The terminations are part of Vera's role in life, helping people in trouble. She doesn't accept money, and from that hangs one of the film's bitterest ironies which we see long before she does. Nevertheless, it is illegal and when the inevitable happens, Vera's not only unprepared, she's plainly uncomprehending.

Leigh observes all this with a minuteness that is hyper-real, so watching the film is like staring through one of those 3D Viewmasters. He is an unblinking observer of the realities of life in ration-starved London, and of the class system - the experience of a pregnant rich girl is a kind of ironic counterpoint - but he's not given to glib moralising. Even an expensive gynaecologist, who might have been an easy target, is shown as a man of kindly motives.

The small ensemble cast is uniformly brilliant, although ultimately it's Vera's film. Charged under a 90-year-old statute, she is like a figure crucified, and Staunton, who is on screen for 80 per cent of the running time, turns in one of the most heartrending and spellbinding performances in memory. She may not win on Oscar night but it won't change the fact that this is the kind of acting that comes only once in a decade. A masterpiece.

CAST: Imelda Staunton, Phil Davis, Daniel Mays, Alex Kelly, Eddie Marsan, Ruth Sheen
DIRECTOR: Mike Leigh
RUNNING TIME: 119 minutes
RATING: M (Adult themes)
SCREENING: Bridgeway, Village St Lukes, Rialto, previews this weekend, opens Thursday