Vera Drake
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Vera Drake is a wonderful woman, almost saintly. This dowdy, middle-aged housewife spends the day with a smile on her face. She stops by the apartment of an invalid neighbor on her way home to make him tea. She loves her family. She invites a shy, lonely neighbor to share a meal with them (and hopes to set him up with her very shy daughter.) She does whatever she can do to help someone in need.
This pattern is established again and again in about the first third of the film before we are shown the secret side of Vera, not known even to her family. Although it’s not really another side, because she is still doing what she can to help someone in need. Only this form of helping is by providing illegal abortions.
Set in the early 1950s, when abortion was still very much a criminal offense, Vera Drake is a very personal look at the issue. The film really doesn’t consider the issues we’ve made so black and white as “pro-life� or “pro-choice.� Instead it shows us Vera as a humane and gentle person, even when she does what many people (and certainly society of that time) consider an unspeakable crime.
For those who do not immediately reject Vera for what she is doing, it is obvious that she understands what she does as kindness. She brings the same joyousness and light spirit that marks the rest of her life into the apartments of her patients. She does it not for money, but to help those in trouble.
The film and the superb performance by Imelda Staunton put a human face on the issue. When Vera is arrested and her secret becomes known, we see a cost, not merely in the threat of prison, but a personal cost that is paid within her family. Some will no doubt think the price she pays for her action is to low. But others will see Vera’s compassion as a virtue that mitigates against judging her too harshly.
Writer-Director Mike Leigh really doesn't want to engage the philosophical debate about abortion. There is no discussion about whether or not a fetus is sacred life. There is no discussion about women’s control of their own bodies. There is no polemic about murdering babies. Instead, there is a very pragmatic view. Abortions happen, whether legal or not. Some women, those with money and connections, were able even at that time to obtain an abortion legally. Others had only the more dangerous option of people like Vera.
The film is certainly on the side of legalized abortions. It makes that point by first letting us meet and begin to love Vera. Only at that point, do we see her hidden life. But by then it’s too late. We know she is a good person. We are called to see what she is doing as necessary, and since it’s her, maybe even good.
Vera Drake will no doubt raise the hackles of many viewers. But more important, it may also raise questions surrounding the issue of abortion that will invite people to consider the issue in ways other than the black and white manner that is often the case.
—Review
—About this Film pdf
—Spiritual Connections
—Forum
Vera Drake is a wonderful woman, almost saintly. This dowdy, middle-aged housewife spends the day with a smile on her face. She stops by the apartment of an invalid neighbor on her way home to make him tea. She loves her family. She invites a shy, lonely neighbor to share a meal with them (and hopes to set him up with her very shy daughter.) She does whatever she can do to help someone in need.
This pattern is established again and again in about the first third of the film before we are shown the secret side of Vera, not known even to her family. Although it’s not really another side, because she is still doing what she can to help someone in need. Only this form of helping is by providing illegal abortions.
Set in the early 1950s, when abortion was still very much a criminal offense, Vera Drake is a very personal look at the issue. The film really doesn’t consider the issues we’ve made so black and white as “pro-life� or “pro-choice.� Instead it shows us Vera as a humane and gentle person, even when she does what many people (and certainly society of that time) consider an unspeakable crime.For those who do not immediately reject Vera for what she is doing, it is obvious that she understands what she does as kindness. She brings the same joyousness and light spirit that marks the rest of her life into the apartments of her patients. She does it not for money, but to help those in trouble.
The film and the superb performance by Imelda Staunton put a human face on the issue. When Vera is arrested and her secret becomes known, we see a cost, not merely in the threat of prison, but a personal cost that is paid within her family. Some will no doubt think the price she pays for her action is to low. But others will see Vera’s compassion as a virtue that mitigates against judging her too harshly.
Writer-Director Mike Leigh really doesn't want to engage the philosophical debate about abortion. There is no discussion about whether or not a fetus is sacred life. There is no discussion about women’s control of their own bodies. There is no polemic about murdering babies. Instead, there is a very pragmatic view. Abortions happen, whether legal or not. Some women, those with money and connections, were able even at that time to obtain an abortion legally. Others had only the more dangerous option of people like Vera.The film is certainly on the side of legalized abortions. It makes that point by first letting us meet and begin to love Vera. Only at that point, do we see her hidden life. But by then it’s too late. We know she is a good person. We are called to see what she is doing as necessary, and since it’s her, maybe even good.
Vera Drake will no doubt raise the hackles of many viewers. But more important, it may also raise questions surrounding the issue of abortion that will invite people to consider the issue in ways other than the black and white manner that is often the case.
1 Comments:
I was appreciative of Darrel's and Whitewater's comments.
I felt much as they did on going to the movie, my wife dragged me there! Once there esconced among the grey hairs on a wet English Saturday evening with my Ben & Jerrys I began to see a different film.
Vera is portraied as a 50's saint with a manic desire to share tea with everyone. In many ways a more soverign remedy than her abortion kit!
Yes, it was about abortion. Yes, that is evil. Although on this side of the pond it is not a big issue in our body politic as it is Over There.
BUT as a Brit I loved its portayal of the gentle England that passed with the 60's permissiveness and 70's punk.
The Police, the courts, even Prison, run smootly with an internal sense of right, both moral and legal (the Crown's motto shown in the court is 'God is my Right/Authority'). No need for violence, swearing or anger, just persuding folk to 'do the right thing'.
It made me reflect again on the evil and degrading nature of modernity with it multiple rights but nothing being right and proper.
Everyone knew, Vera, her family, everyone, what was right and what was wrong. Her son was the most visible sign of this with an angry out burst "But you knew it was wrong". Othersjust could not reconcile the two 'halves' of Vera's life.
My feeling is that Vera was an amoral woman constrained by fairly rigid rules. Amoral in that she, as a simple person (her daughter was a younger Vera) lacked the clear boundries to see the road she was on.
Lily, the procurer, was immoral. With her lies, cheating and stealing the film failed to see the end of her story, a sad lack.
Well worth seeing, I hope to guide my teenagers through the video when it appears.
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