This movie sucks, and I’m going to tell you why.

To begin with, there is nothing going on within the story beyond the story itself. There is no hint of it being a true story per se, but it is structured just like a true story. It tells us of Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton), a kind, older woman in the British 50’s. She’s goes about doing good and has a warm family. All is well with her life until it is discovered that she has been secretly helping women have abortions. She’s charged and sent to the slammer. That’s it. That’s all there is.

The reason it’s supposed to be interesting is because this is someone who is, otherwise a wonderful person. She’s doesn’t even charge for her services, but merely does it to help out. It’s an interesting idea. It’s an idea you could do something with. Vera Drake, however, does nothing with it.

We neither know nor understand what is really going on with Vera. Obviously she means well, but her incessant crying after she is discovered brings some questions. Namely, why is she crying? It seems to me, that her primary concern really is for her family. She’s feels bad that she won’t be there for her family while she’s doing her time. Her elderly mother depends on her, and, to a lesser extent, so does her entire family. Secondly, she also feels shamed. Everyone she knows will now know that she was a criminal. This certainly brings shame on her and, more importantly, her good innocent family. Third, she’s may be crying because it sucks that she’s going to have to go to jail. Fine.

But amongst all these tears I never got the sense that any of them were tears of remorse for what she’s done. This is largely because she never felt like what she was doing was truly wrong. Now, aside from the fact of whether what she was doing was really wrong or not, this makes the character uninteresting. She never changes. We see someone do something wrong, get caught, and go to jail. Not interesting. Not interesting at all.

Sure, she’s an interesting character in herself. She’s a strong, vibrant person who, living in a lower class world, as had a hard life and must work hard to keep living. And yet, she puts herself at risk to do something she feels is noble. That’s fine. It’s a good idea, but it’s static. What we see of her life is a photograph, not a moving picture. The story is as dry as it could possibly be.

When the screen isn’t on Vera, it spends time with her family. Her son chases girls, her daughter is getting engaged. Unfortunately, there’s not much justification for the time spent on the family. My best guess is that they bring out the background in Vera, they magnify the very real family that she must leave behind. If we weren’t familiar with her family, then we would care even less that Vera was going to jail. But it’s a weak justification. Other than provide for scaffolding, the family is of no real interest at all. They are all static, boring background characters. They add nothing real to the story.

In an even stranger move, the film spends time on a young lady named Miss Wells. Miss Wells is raped, and then seeks out an abortion otherwise she will kill herself. The film spends a good deal of time on this character – and we watch her do nothing but cry for a good ten minutes or so – but then she drops off the face of the earth. Maybe she killed herself. Seriously though, we never see her again. Again, my best guess is that she was supposed to represent the hard case; the reason why Vera’s work was so important. But it’s weakly done. We feel sorry for the girl, but the fact that the girl is never a character in herself makes her uninteresting. She’s really just wasted time in a movie that’s doing all it can to stretch a 15 minute story out over two hours.

I think that’s the bottom line right there. It’s a FIFTEEN MINUTE story. This movie would have been a great short. Everything important in this film could have been depicted in 15 minutes. Nevertheless, we are subjected to a story that drags on and on and on. It goes on and on and never gets anywhere.

Imelda Staunton’s performance is impressive, but then again, seriously – all she does for the latter hour is cry. It certainly must have been difficult for her do that, knowing that every film minute is often a good hour or so in front of the camera. But it’s not interesting to watch. In fact, there’s a lot of crying in this movie. In the first half, Miss Wells is crying and then in the second it’s Vera’s turn. It’s really rather tedious to sit through.

Strangely enough, for a film such as this, the least of my complaints is for the sympathetic depiction of abortion. The truth is, the film keeps remarkably away from the subject. The need of for abortion is clearly argued for, particularly when it comes to Miss Wells. On the other hand, the family has some genuinely negative things to say about it when they discover what Vera has been doing – things that the film doesn’t seem to try to defend itself against. The son, in particular, sees abortion as horrible, and the film seems to respect his opinion. Overall, however, the film seems as if it really doesn’t want to get into a discussion on whether abortion is or isn’t wrong. The only important fact is that Vera doesn’t think it is.

I can’t go without mentioning the engagement scene, which I’m still not sure was supposed to be funny or not. But it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in awhile. It’s certainly the funniest proposal scene I’ve ever seen. Otherwise, the film is completely devoid of interest.

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