Legendary Director Closes Out His Career With a Masterpiece

Courtesy of TIFF After a 55-year big-screen career that includes a murderer’s row line-up of profound dramas ( Naked , Secrets & Lies , Mr.

Turner , Hard Truths ) and nary a substantial misstep, 83-year-old British auteur Mike Leigh claims that, with Tender Loving Care , he’s likely hanging it up for good.

If that’s the case, he goes out on a tremendous high, as the writer/director’s sixteenth feature is as great as anything he’s ever produced—a small-scale domestic drama that reverberates loudly, and urgently, as a celebration of everyday compassion and solidarity.

Screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and co-starring Widow’s Bay breakout Kate O’Flynn, Tender Loving Care is the story of two women and one older couple, all of whom are attempting to navigate perilous moments in their run-of-the-mill lives.

Amy (O’Flynn) is a social services worker who checks in on children in peril and adults in the midst of potential crises, and the patience, positivity, and steadfastness with which she treats her cases reflect her indefatigable personality.

Nonetheless, soldiering on with a brave face and upbeat attitude isn’t always possible, and beneath her generous advice and joking, a host of tumultuous emotions are subtly visible.

At the start of Tender Loving Care , Amy moves back in with her best friend Rosie (Alice Bailey Johnson), the result of having split with a long-term boyfriend who’s chosen to reconnect with his ex-wife.

This isn’t tragic news—Amy clearly didn’t adore him, and Rosie seems to have liked him less—but for the 39-year-old, it’s nonetheless another relationship flop that begets a mixture of fear (of never finding Mr.

Right), anger (over his abandonment), and shame (born from feeling and looking like an undesirable failure).

Not that any of this is intensely discussed; rather, Flynn, in a superlative turn, delicately conveys it all in the brief instances when she’s not goofing off with Rosie, who’s also a social worker contending with hostile assignments and a tepid romantic life.

Both together and apart, Amy and Rosie come across as genuine Brits coping with familiar ups and downs, and that additionally applies to Amy’s parents, Birdie (Marion Bailey) and Geoff (Paul Jesson), whom she routinely visits.

Birdie and Geoff’s rapport is as warm and comfortable as a well-worn winter coat, and the success of their nearly half-century marriage is both inspiring to Amy and a goal she feels bad about not achieving.

For her mom and dad, though, the only thing that matters is their daughter’s happiness, and she knows it, which is why she initially avoids telling them about her break-up—a deception by omission that spares them disappointment and worry, and spares her the burden of those concerns.