VFS Presents “Life Is Sweet” Screening

The Ventura Film Society loves programming films by the great UK realist director Mike Leigh (“Turner” VFS 2014). We hope you’ll join us for “Life Is Sweet” on Thursday, May 30 @ 7:30pm Museum of Ventura County.

ROGER EBERT’S REVIEW – Most movies begin by knowing everything about their characters. “Life is Sweet” seems to make discoveries as it goes along; it really feels as if the story is as surprising to the characters as it is to us. The filmmaker, Mike Leigh, works in a unique way: He assembles his actors, and then they spend weeks or months devising the screenplay by improvising together. When it’s finished, they start shooting, having in vented the characters from the inside out.

With “Life is Sweet,” that approach combines more humor and more poignancy into the same story than most screenwriters would have dared. There are scenes here that are funnier than those of any other movie this year, and other scenes that weep with the pain of sad family secrets, and when it’s over we have seen some kind of masterpiece. This is one of the best films of the year.