Imelda Staunton

Phil Davis

Sally Hawkins

Daniel Mays

Eddie Marsan

Alex Kelly

Ruth Sheen

Adrian Scarborough

Heather Craney

Lesley Manville

Simon Chandler

Wendy Nottingham

Richard Graham

Anna Keaveney

Peter Wight

Martin Savage

Helen Coker

Jim Broadbent

Gerard Monaco

Leo Bill

Lesley Sharp

Liz White

Sandra Voe

Chris O'Dowd

Anthony O'Donnell

Marion Bailey

Sam Troughton

Sinead Matthews

Tilly Vosburgh

Alan Williams

Allan Corduner

Fenella Woolgar

Elizabeth Berrington

Emma Amos

Rosie Cavaliero

Nicky Henson

Eileen Davies

Paul Jesson

Vincent Franklin

Tom Ellis

Jake Wood

Sid Mitchell

Vinette Robinson

Heather Cameron-McLintock

Billie Cook

Billy Seymour

Nina Fry

Joanna Griffiths

Angie Wallis

Judith Scott

Robert Putt

Craig Conway

Paul Raffield

Jeffry Wickham

Nicholas Jones

Angela Curran

Jane Wood

Tracy O'Flaherty

James Payton

John Warman

Simon Channing Williams

Alain Sarde

Andrew Dickson

Dick Pope

Jim Clark

Mike Leigh

Jacqueline Durran

Nina Gold

Eve Stewart

Andrew Grant

Ed Walsh

Jo Littlejohn

Tanya Clark

Charlotte Finlay

Heather Storr

John Bush

Gail Egan

Christine Gozlan

Robert Jones

Georgina Lowe

Duncan Reid

Christine Blundell

Lesa Warrener

Josh Robertson

Rosalie Clayton

Ali James

Henry Woolley

Chris Allies

Francesca Jaynes

Lee Eldred

Simon Mein

Matthew Moffat

Chris Burdon

Peter Burgess

Richard Mills

Drama

Vera Drake

StudioCanal

Les Films Alain Sarde

Inside Track

Thin Man Films

United Kingdom

France

CinemaSerf

Imelda Staunton is great here as the middle-aged wife, merrily living her family life with husband "Stan" (Phil Davis) and her two grown up children and their partners. She is well respected by her peers and seems to be the epitome of the hardworking 1950s British housewife. Until, that is - a policeman arrives at her door and her world starts to cave in. Now we know from fairly early on that "Vera" likes to help girls out. To be fair - there are plenty of them who are eligible. Raising a family when rationing was still around, jobs thin on the ground and their men folks usually keen to run a mile (if they even knew/or cared) was a daunting prospect to many a young woman, bereft of familial or state support. She didn't take cash for her carbolic and syringe services, she just thinks she is doing the best for all concerned. Needless to say the morals of the time did not necessarily concur, the law certainly didn't - and so we are faced with a rather well presented and written analysis of the antiquated and illiberal situation in which many women found themselves. The film doesn't attempt to moralise - it allows each of us to observe her activities and to evaluate - almost on a case by case basis - the relative merits of her interventions and I think that is particularly effective when stimulating the debate that this film is bound to create. The supporting cast including a career defining contribution from Daniel Mays as her conflicted son "Sid", Eddie Marsan and Heather Craney allow the story to spread out covering not just the actions of "Vera" but also of the complicity - sympathetically and/or venally motivated - by those in the medical profession and those in the community who had less scruples in monetising the misfortune of others. Above all, this is thought provoking - there is no simple answer to what's going on here, and for that Staunton (and Mike Leigh) are to be commended. It's not for the fainted-hearted, but the most poignant of films never are.

English

Mike Leigh and Phil Davis on Vera Drake | BFI Q&A