Mike Leigh's abortion drama "Vera Drake" starts out painstakingly slow. With incredible attention to the details of daily life, Leigh draws us into the world of Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton), a working class woman in gray, dreary post-war London.
We see Vera at work as a maid for a wealthy family. We see her at home in her tiny apartment, with her adoring husband Stan and her two grown children, who still have not left the nest, good-natured Sid (Daniel Mays) and the painfully shy daughter Ethel (Alex Kelly.) She invites lonely neighbors over for home cooked meals and takes care of her ill mother. Without a doubt, Vera's days are long and hard, but she is always cheerful. This good cheer remains when she appears at the apartments of women in need and competently performs saline abortions. Kind and reassuring, Vera Drake must be the most grandmotherly illegal abortionist ever known to mankind.
Leigh fully creates Vera's universe, and Imelda Staunton, in an absolutely riveting performance, makes her real. Somewhere along the line, Vera, whose goodness initially seems almost laughable, becomes a person you deeply love and admire. She's a fictional character, but oh, how easy that is to forget when her troubles begin.
Because Vera Drake performs an illegal service, and because she is the leading character of a feature film, we know from the start that something must go wrong. When a young woman nearly dies after receiving Vera's services, she is discovered by the police and arrested. The inevitability does not make her story any less powerful. Again, with painstaking care and patience, Leigh takes us through the process of Vera's experience in the English legal system. Her pain is heartbreaking, as is the despair and confusion of her family.
As the Drakes live and breathe for us on screen, the film makes a strong stand about the need for safe and legal abortions.
