"Actor: Lesley Manville"

• All Or Nothing | DVD | (28/04/2003) from £6.85   |  Saving you £13.14 (191.82%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A 2002 Mike Leigh drama, All or Nothing is at times almost unbearably bleak and poignant, yet funny, truthful and richly rewarding. The film's revolves around Timothy Spall's mini-cab driver, his family and the various characters and acquaintances on the South-east London estate where he lives. It's perhaps even better than Secrets and Lies, in which Spall also starred, which was marred a little by some of the tearful excesses of Brenda Blethyn's bravura performance. It's evidence that Leigh has matured and improved with age, rather than mellowed and softened. He's developed into a highly distinctive but rounded and humane filmmaker. Spall's cabbie is too gentle and thoughtful to be described as a slob, but his lack of even the most basic ambition and stoic non-resistance to life has created an unspoken rift between him and wife Penny (Lesley Manville). Working on a supermarket checkout, she must cook dinner and fend off insults from her fat, frustrated, obnoxious 18-year-old son Rory. She receives only passive sympathy from her older daughter Rachel. Only when Rory is taken ill is Phil snapped out of his torpor as the family pull together. A host of minor characters also feature; fatuous cabbie Ron (Paul Jesson) his alcoholic wife and sluttish daughter, as well as the wonderfully good-humoured and resilient Maureen, Penny's best friend, concerned at her daughter's relationship with a violent boyfriend. Once accused of caricaturing his "lower class" characters, here Leigh (with the collaborative assistance of his actors) exhibits them in all their authentic complexity, neither idealising nor sentimentalising them. On the DVD: All or Nothing's extras include the original trailer, as well as interviews with several members of the cast. Timothy Spall is interesting on the unnerving process of collaboration favoured by Leigh, whereby characters are "built from zero" by the actors. The smart and rather posh Lesley Manville strikes quite a contrast in real life with her mousey, put-upon character. There's also a meticulous and absorbing commentary from Mike Leigh, who talks about filming in Greenwich and how he has moved away from some of the more dogmatic ideas about filmmaking of his earlier, avant-garde days. --David Stubbs

• Secrets And Lies | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  If a film fan had never heard of director Mike Leigh, one might explain him as a British Woody Allen. Not that Leigh's films are whimsical or neurotic; they are tough-love examinations of British life--funny, outlandish and biting. His films share a real immediacy with Allen's work: they feel as if they are happening now. Leigh works with actors--real actors--on ideas and language. There is no script at the start (and sometimes not at the end). Secrets and Lies involves Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), an elegant black woman wanting to learn her birth mother's identity. She will find it's Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), who is one of the saddest creatures we've seen in film. She's also one of the most real and, ultimately, one of the most loveable. Timothy Spall is Cynthia's brother, a giant man full of love who is being slowly defeated by his fastidious wife (Phyllis Logan). There is a great exuberance of life in Secrets & Lies, winner of the Palme D'Or and best actress (Blethyn) at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival--not Zorba-type life but the little battles fought and won every day. Leigh's honest interpretation of daily life is usually found only on the stage. Secrets & Lies is more realistic than a stage production, however, especially when Leigh shows us uninterrupted scenes. Critic David Denby states that Leigh has "made an Ingmar Bergman film without an instant of heaviness or pretension." If that sounds like your cup of tea, see Secrets & Lies. --Doug Thomas

• Dance With A Stranger | DVD | (30/04/2001) from £44.99   |  Saving you £-35.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Based on the true story of the last woman ever executed in Britain Ruth Ellis starts down the road of romantic self-destruction when she meets and starts a love affair with wealthy gentlemen David Blakely who felt it was impossible to uphold the relationship with the single mother due to the pressure of his upper-class peers.

• Mike Leigh: Secrets And Lies, Life Is Sweet, Career Girls | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Secrets And LiesNominated for 5 Oscars winner of 3 BAFTA Awards and the winner of 'Best Film' at the Cannes Film Festival Mike Leigh's hilarious bittersweet comedy is an unmissable and moving slice of real life. Life Is SweetLife is Sweet is the remarkable story of an unremarkable British family told in the classic tragi-comedy style that is uniquely Mike Leigh's. It covers issues of unemployment anorexia failure nervous breakdown and hope as they affect one suburban London family and their friends and acquaintances. The characters and story were created with and by the actors - giving a special edge and momentum to the unfolding events. Leigh's sharply satirical and unsentimentally compassionate view of life strikes a chord with audiences and critics alike. Life is Sweet brings together an impressive cast - including Alison Steadman ('Let Them Eat Cake') Jim Broadbent ('The Avengers') Jane Horrocks ('Little Voice') and Timothy Spall ('Topsy Turvey') - many of whom have worked with Leigh in the past as has producer Simon Channing-Williams. Career GirlsFormer college flatmates Annie (Lynda Steadman) and Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge) decide to meet up in London for the weekend. Naturally both girls have changed since their student days of some 10 years earlier. The curry loving Cure obsessed acne ridden and moody flatmates of yesteryear have been replaced by confident career girls of today. As they talk go flat-hunting get drunk and bump into numerous people from their past the girls start to reminisce upon their earlier friendship.

• The Firm | DVD | (05/02/2001) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  These days people are dangerously nostalgic about the sinister tackiness of the 1980s, but there's no stiffer antidote to such delusion than Alan Clarke's The Firm. This unforgettable film was made as a one-off drama for the BBC in 1988, but its cult following has grown steadily through video, thanks to a startling central performance from a young Gary Oldman, and the riveting manner in which Clarke captures the lethal, mindless energy of football hooliganism. Oldman plays Clive "Bexy" Bissell, working-class East London boy done good: a prosperous estate agent, proud homeowner, happy husband and doting father. But his chief pleasure is to be team leader ("top boy") of a bunch of overgrown yobs who attend football matches in order to cause violence. At weekends Bexy leads his "Inter City Crew" into rucks with rival warlords such as Yeti (Phil Davis) and Oboe (Andrew Wilde), in search of what he calls "the buzz", no matter the cost to his young family and his future prospects. The Firm was entirely shot on SteadiCam, enabling Clarke to drop the viewer right into the thick of the action and exploit some hair-raisingly authentic rowdiness from his talented cast. Among these thugs, soap fans will spot Eastenders' Steve McFadden and Charlie Lawson of Coronation Street. The Firm is a masterpiece of social-realist drama, and one of the most virulently anti-Thatcherite films of its time. An avid supporter of Everton FC, Clarke responded to Al Hunter's script because he felt that the vicious idiots spoiling football were a new breed of disgrace. The tabloids raised a stink about the film's violence, and the BBC delayed its broadcast until 1989. A year later, Alan Clarke died of cancer, But The Firm is a tremendous last testament from the finest English director of his generation. --Richard Kelly

• High Season | DVD | (15/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  On the Island of Rhodes Katherine is an expatriate English photographer living with her daughter. In an attempt to encourage tourism a sculpture is commissioned for the Town Square only the sculptor turns out to be Kath's ex-husband. The events that follow ensure that Katherine's dreams of an idyllic escape are well and truly shattered!

• The Great Ecstasy Of Robert Carmichael | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £11.68   |  Saving you £8.31 (41.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Three teenage boys are led into violence and temptation on a journey that will shock their sleepy community yet also express its deepest jealousies and divisions. The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael is a brutal and unflinchingly honest portrayal of life in a post-9/11 world. Filmed in long stylised takes the narrative is elliptical and poetic yet infused with a dark and ironic wit.

• Alan Clarke Collection | DVD | (31/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Scum (1979): Raw, violent and shocking, Scum is a compelling story set in a contemporary Borstal. It tells of life in an institution run by violence and brutality rather than reason, where the boy who can fight his way to the top of the heap and reign as 'Daddy' will gain the respect of the inmates and sadistic 'screws' alike. One of the most controversial films ever made in the UK, and one which caused a huge furore when it was first screened on TV, Scum s...

• The Firm | DVD | (21/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

• Mrs Harris Goes to Paris | DVD | (19/12/2022) from £15.25   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris tells a humorously heartwarming tale about London housecleaner Ada Harris (Lesley Manville), who thinks her lonely life might turn around if she can become the owner of a Christian Dior gown. Saying goodbye to friends like Archie (Jason Isaacs) won't be easy, and neither will be winning over elite people in Paris from Madame Colbert (Isabelle Huppert) to idealistic accountant André (Lucas Bravo). But Ada's irrepressible charm just might end up saving the whole House of Dior in this uplifting story of how an ordinary woman becomes an extraordinary inspiration by daring to follow her dreams. Product Features Deleted and Extended Scenes Gag reel