All or Nothing (film)

All or Nothing
All or Nothing
	British DVD cover
Directed by	Mike Leigh
Written by	Mike Leigh
Produced by	Simon Channing Williams
Starring	Timothy Spall; Lesley Manville
Edited by	Lesley Walker
Music by	Andrew Dickson
Production; companies	Thin Man Films; StudioCanal
Distributed by	UGC Films UK
Release dates	17 May 2002 (Cannes); 18 October 2002;
Running time	128 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$9 million
Box office	$2.8 million

All or Nothing is a 2002 British drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh and starring Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville. Like much of Leigh's work, the film is set in present-day London, and depicts three working-class families and their everyday lives.

Synopsis

The film begins with a day nearing its end. Rachel, the daughter in the first family, is shown working in a nursing home. Phil, her father, is seen driving people around in his minicab. Penny, Rachel's mother, is shown working as a cashier at a Safeway store alongside Maureen, the mother in the second family. When Penny leaves work, she cycles home to find her 18-year-old son Rory in a fight with a local boy for taking his football.

Rory is a lazy, obese, ill-mannered teenager who neither goes to school nor has a job. Complications with his obesity arise when after an altercation with a gang of youths playing piggy in the middle, he runs out of breath, begins to hyperventilate and is hospitalized after suffering a heart attack.

The second family consists of Maureen, another cashier at Safeway, and her daughter Donna, a waitress at a cafe. Donna becomes pregnant by her boyfriend Jason despite being on the pill, and this leads to a heated argument among the three characters.

The third family consists of Ron, who also drives a minicab, his unemployed teenage daughter Samantha, and his wife Carol, an unemployed alcoholic. Samantha shows interest in both Jason and Craig, a taciturn young man who seems to stalk her.

Cast

Timothy Spall as Phil
Lesley Manville as Penny
James Corden as Rory
Alison Garland as Rachel
Ruth Sheen as Maureen
Marion Bailey as Carol
Paul Jesson as Ron
Sam Kelly as Sid
Kathryn Hunter as Cécile
Sally Hawkins as Samantha
Helen Coker as Donna
Daniel Mays as Jason
Ben Crompton as Craig
Robert Wilfort as Dr. Simon Griffith
Gary McDonald as Neville
Dorothy Atkinson as A Silent Passenger
Alan Williams as Drunk

Film locations

Dungeness in Kent was used as a film location for the scene where Phil visits the coast to contemplate his problems.^[2]

Reception

It was well received by critics and audiences alike, receiving an 82% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 92 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The critical consensus states that "All or Nothing's depiction of the working-class can be depressingly bleak, but the performances are wonderfully true to life."^[3] It has a 72/100 average on Metacritic.^[4] The film holds an average B+ grade on Yahoo! Movies.

Awards

The film won the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best British Film of the Year, and Mike Leigh was nominated for Best Director at the European Film Awards. The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.^[5]