Vera Drake

Variety David Rooney

Mike Leigh is at the peak of his powers with Vera Drake, a compassionate, morally complex drama that stands easily alongside his best work, "Secrets & Lies" and "Topsy-Turvy."

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Vera Drake puts the passion in compassion. Building up to a shattering conclusion, Leigh's movie is both outrageously schematic and powerfully humanist.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Stunning and compassionate period drama.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The acting is brilliant and Leigh's screenplay - developed through his usual process of improvisation and rehearsal - is very long on compassion, very short on preaching and politics.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A marvel of character-driven drama that no serious filmgoer should miss.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Among its many excellences, Vera Drake functions superbly as a pure thriller; the last half is reminiscent in structure and detail of Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man."

USA Today Mike Clark

This is the kind of people-driven story that the movies used to give us - before special effects took over.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Few movies have evoked the happiness of a good, strong family as genuinely as this one. And this affecting atmosphere makes the eventual outcome resonate with great power.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The strength of Leigh's film is that it is not a message picture, but a deep and true portrait of these lives.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

In absorbing drama and staggering emotions, it renders an issue too often seen as black or white in heartbreaking gray.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

There's nothing harder for an actor to play than a thoroughly good character, and Staunton does it with a dowdy, sublime originality.

Washington Post Sean Daly

Sweet, strange and ultimately heartbreaking.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Much of the film's potency derives from its personal edge -- the passion for precise period decor, the title dedicating the film to Leigh's parents (a doctor and midwife), and even the childlike classification of many characters as either good souls or villains.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

As an evocation of English working-class life half a century ago, it feels utterly authentic, and is ennobled -- not too strong a word, I think -- by Imelda Staunton's performance in the title role.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The English director Mike Leigh's best work in a decade.

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

Vera Drake is so patient, assiduous and attentive to emotional accuracy that it betrays the utter sloth of most of what we see when we go to the movies.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The film is startlingly even-handed.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

It does a masterful job of capturing a specific time and place while reminding us how timeless the abortion dialogue is.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Confirms Leigh's reputation as one of the world's master filmmakers - and showcases Staunton as one of its great actresses.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

For those who have the patience to become absorbed in this kind of drama, Vera Drake offers a stunningly real character portrait whose image will linger long after the movie has faded.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Using Staunton's face as his canvas, Leigh crafts a powerfully moving film that is unmissable and unforgettable.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

No filmmaker, in any cinematic culture, has a better eye or ear for the working class than director Mike Leigh.

Empire Kim Newman

Painful for many reasons, but highly recommended.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

It's difficult to think of another recent film so seamlessly rendered or that envelops an audience so completely in its period authenticity.

The New Yorker David Denby

Marvellous, though it is smaller in emotional range than such earlier Mike Leigh films as the goofy bourgeois satire "High Hopes" (1988), the candid and piercing "Secrets & Lies" (1996), and the splendid theatrical spectacle "Topsy-Turvy" (1999).

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

One of the letdowns of Vera Drake is that once Vera is arrested, we lose her voice.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The issue may be polarizing, but Vera Drake resonates with such seriousness and truth that it transcends the narrow limitations of polemic.

Time Richard Schickel

This very patient film reaches out and unshakably grips us.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

In an era in which too many of us automatically accept women's right to choose, Vera Drake reminds us that the time for complacency is not now.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Imelda Staunton is absolutely astonishing.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

In the end, this is a movie that doesn't respect its own power. Less of a stacked deck would have left Vera Drake to play a far more effective hand.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Makes a compelling argument for women's rights without ever succumbing to preachiness.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Expansive, but succinct. Leigh tells a small story and doesn't try to make something huge of it.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

As lovely and heartbreaking as Staunton is to watch, there's something about Leigh's attachment to his politics that leaches some complexity from the experience

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Leigh's directing is lean and tight. In Imelda Staunton as Vera, he has an actress who can make her only two emotions interesting.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Staunton is phenomenal - she barely speaks throughout the entire last third of the film, but the power of her posture and distraught expressions are enough to break your heart.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

When one of the young women Vera attends to nearly dies of complications, the police arrest her -- and the movie goes thud, taking Staunton's performance along with it.

Slate David Edelstein

Marathon of misery.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

As a character study Vera Drake is coarsely drawn, and as pro-choice polemic, it’s both a blunt instrument and a red herring. Which may be why, among all the moviegoers who staggered from the theater wielding soaked tissues, I was among the few who remained dry of eye, and raised of brow.

Film Threat Phil Hall

The film's screenplay is thick with major lapses in logic, resulting in a story that ultimately makes little sense.