Starring: Imelda Staunton and Richard Graham
Director: Mike Leigh
Rated: M15+
VERA Drake won the Golden Lion at the 61st Venice Film Festival.
This British film won a further boost when Imelda Staunton was named as Best Actress. She has also received an Oscar nomination.
When it screened halfway through the Venice festival, headlines appeared: “A film about abortion”.
The presumption seemed to be that Vera Drake was “pro-abortion”.
A potential scandal makes for ready copy. This continued in most of the reporting about the film and its awards.
The buzz about Vera Drake being a front-runner for the big award led to speculation about how the Catholic Church would respond.
Italian journalists are said to have a reputation for being critical of the Church, if not stridently anti-clerical at times, so this would provide a field day.
In the event this did not happen, although the members of the Catholic jury for the SIGNIS award (for the World Catholic Association for Communications) were alerted to the sensitivity of the situation.
Two factors contributed to a more intelligent discussion of the film.
First was the film itself.
Mike Leigh is a master film-maker. He has won awards in Cannes for Naked and his very moving, Secrets and Lies.
Other films include the Gilbert and Sullivan portrait, Topsy-Turvy as well as the picture of very ordinary London life, All or Nothing.
Vera Drake is in the All or Nothing tradition.
Vera Drake is a 50 year-old housewife in North London in 1950.
She is generous to a fault. Nothing is too much trouble for her.
Everyone says she has a heart of gold. She is the proverbial good woman.
The first half of the film is a moving portrait of this woman whom Imelda Staunton’s performance makes memorable.
Without any lead in we are shown how she also performs syringe abortions for women and girls “in need”.
She has done this for 20 years or more. Her family know nothing about it.
When one girl suffers complications, hospital authorities inform the police and Vera is subject to questioning and arrest.
The second factor for discussion was Mike Leigh’s press conference.
He was quick to point out that his films treat social issues but never provide unequivocal answers. He provides the equivalent of a case study (something like what seminarians explored in the past during their moral theology course).
Leigh noted that, while we bring our own agenda to the story, we are invited to consider a wider range of perspectives. It is not simply, or simplistically, a moral judgment by unannounced application of moral principles.
Catholic confessional practice has traditionally urged for more delicacy of conscience and a greater appreciation of what full knowledge and full consent mean in the context of responsibility for actions and for sin.
Leigh said that some audiences would view Vera as a saint, committed to assisting women; others would see her as a monster, destroying lives.
Most audiences hurry out as soon as final credits roll. For those who stay, they will see that Leigh dedicates his film to his parents, a doctor and a midwife.
The difficulty with labelling a film “about abortion” is that this merely tells us the subject, or one of the subjects, of the film.
The biblical story of David and Bathsheba is about adultery and murder but that is just a labelling description. What we need to know is “how” these issues are presented.
This is the criterion for a moral evaluation of a film. This means, as a correspondent for Vatican Radio was reported as saying on air during the Venice festival, that Leigh’s film is “difficult and interesting” and “avoided propaganda and tentative and facile conclusions”.
Catholic teaching has always urged the faithful to condemn the sin but not the sinner.
Leigh’s portrait of Vera Drake contributes to that way of looking at her despite what she does.
