Very Annie Mary (2001)

Powerful

A lot of fun.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Annie Mary has a decidedly fraught relationship with her widowed father who puts her down at every opportunity and never ceases to remind her how inferior she is to her mother who died when Annie Mary was 15 and on the brink of a career in opera.At that time the poor girl put aside her chance of fame and fortune to concentrate on helping her father run his bakery business in a small Welsh village.Bullied,downtrodden,with little sense of self - worth,she seems destined for a life of perpetual misery until her father is struck down by a stroke.................... "Very Annie Mary" sounds like a movie that could have sunk in its own morass of self - pity but in fact it celebrates all the small (and not so small) victories that make human life so memorably uncertain,unpredictable and gloriously serendipitous for most of us. The people are not the mealy -mouthed BBC Mafia Welsh but the wonderfully verbose vibrant types celebrated by Dylan Thomas,people from whose mouths the words come tumbling out unchecked,they celebrate life rather than endure it,exactly the opposite to the characters in so many British turn - of - the - century comedy/dramas that are far better known. Briliiantly played by a cast that looks and sounds exactly right,"Very Annie Mary" is a movie that will both concern and enchant you. It's about living,sweating,swearing,loving,hating,lying and truthing human beings,infuriating,depressing and funny - just like you and me. This is what life is really like - increase your appetite for it by watching this uplifting movie.

I settled down to watch this having recorded it some years ago when it was shown in the BBC sign zone, something I had forgotten till the sign language started up in the bottom corner! My sister must have recommended it to me as one of her favourites and that was all I knew of it. I found I didn't know what to make of the film throughout, was it funny or sad, comedy or tragedy? I guess it's both.Some bits shocked me, like her maltreatment of her disabled father, yet it made me adjust the stereotyped view of someone in this situation and remember that she was barely able to take care of herself properly and therefore totally clueless about caring for a disabled person, let alone him being the father who had put her down with his criticism for years.Whether it was the filmmaker's intent, I found the sensation of watching brought alive the situation of life just 'happening' to Annie Mary so that one moment her friend Bethan says she's in remission and the next she's talking about a hospice with no lead up to it either way.Annie Mary felt a very real character in the way that I found myself liking and disliking her, she wasn't all good or all bad as a human as with some of the more 'easy' to watch films from Hollywood where you know who to like and dislike within minutes of meeting them.Overall it has been a film that has made a real impact on me, too soon to say what but waking up having watched it the night before I find it is still vivid in my mind, still making me think... and feel.

Very Annie Mary is a film that focuses on the character of the same name that lives in a small welsh village. She is the archetypal "a bit slow" character with her father (an excellent turn from Johnathan Pryce) being the village big shot, a popular baker and the most celebrated tenor in Wales. Annie Mary's friend is dying and the whole village is taking part in charitable events to get her to Disneyland. If you like the sound of this already, then this film should appeal to you. There's a fine amount of comedy and tragedy as this character struggles to cope with the obstacles thrown her way and get what she wants. Personally, I found it lacking something that I'd got from other similar films and I found the main character just a little too far to handle. However the film got a couple of genuine laughs out of me and was worth watching for Jonathan Pryce's performance alone.

A joy to watch, Rachel Griffiths, Jonathan Pryce and Ioan Gruffydd should have been nominated for academy awards, a film like this is packed with a unique Welsh humour, that is sometimes hard for those not blessed to have been born in the beautiful country, to understand. Rachel Griffiths, a Welsh name, an Australian actress who made herself live the part, to become Welsh and understand what it means to live in a small community such as is portayed in this classic. If you buy no other film this year, buy Very Annie Mary, you'll laugh, cry, sympathise, and go through a million different emotions, you'll never look at a cabbage in the same light again. Superb acting, fantastic soundtrack, how does Puccini go side by side with the Village People - it does here. 10 /10 amazing film.