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All or Nothing
EMAILPRINTUnited Artists/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corporation

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Mike Leigh
Directed by: Mike Leigh
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 25, 2002
DVD: February 18, 2003
Running Time: 128 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / France
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive language and some sexuality
Starring Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Alison Garland, James Corden, Ruth Sheen, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, and Kathryn Hunter
An unexpected tragedy brings two people together to rediscover their love.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Happy-Go-Lucky Secrets & Lies Topsy-Turvy Vera Drake
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
There are moments in All or Nothing of such acute observation that we nod in understanding -- The closing scenes of the movie are just about perfect.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rich Cline
It's a remarkable film; the dialogue takes our breath away with its sharp skewering of expectations and realities, the bleak honesty is balanced by the freshness of real life and moments of raw truth and comedy -- Don't miss it.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
Mike Leigh returns to the council flats of London -- and delivers a richly Dickensian masterpiece about working-class family life.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly John Patterson
It's a strangely stirring experience that finds warmth in the coldest environment and makes each crumb of emotional comfort feel like a 10-course banquet.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
All the drinking, arguing and brooding, which in lesser hands might have produced oppressive and unvarying dreariness, somehow adds up to a tableau of extraordinary vividness and variety.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
The acting in All or Nothing is superb. Everyone creates a character we can immediately register and recognize as true.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
No picnic to watch -- Leigh's camera is unsentimental and unsparing.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Meredith Brody
A comic and moving examination of life in an impoverished South London housing complex, features marvelous performances, especially from Leigh stalwart Timothy Spall.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
Though it's become almost redundant to say so, major kudos go to Leigh for actually casting people who look working-class; you'd be hard-pressed to get an American studio to go along with that, even though Leigh alumni often become famous.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Hollywood hardly ever pays attention to such people, and the average moviegoer won't either. But Leigh makes an irrefutable claim that their lives matter, and that attention must be paid.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
Leigh's uncanny ability to mine emotional truth packs the usual punch. And the trademark flashes of humor sprinkled throughout ease the bleakness of the landscape.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Leigh doesn't sentimentalize these tragic, dead-end lives but allows his characters to be ugly and stupid, to make horrendous mistakes. Sometimes they're laughable, and yet there's never the sense that Leigh is mocking them.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Leigh isn't breaking new ground, but he knows how a daily grind can kill love. Strong stuff.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Suffers from touches of sentimentality in its last portion -- Many viewers may welcome this last-minute brightening, though. If so, All or Nothing could join "Topsy Turvy" and "Secrets & Lies" as one of Leigh's most widely enjoyed recent films.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Everything you've come to expect, and cherish, in a Mike Leigh movie.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
The wealth of behavioral detail and observational humor make for some rewarding drama that will resonate with many viewers.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
It's a hard-won comfort, found here over a bleak stretch of days, but All Or Nothing makes it look like the best life has to offer.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
All or Nothing has some appealing performances, several scenes of absolutely shattering domestic drama and an uncanny aura of gut-wrenching, documentarylike authenticity.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
In that rare moment, the movie relaxes its rictus of pain and actually dares to feel good. Moments like these aren't just a negotiation between all and nothing -- they're everything that allows us to care about even those characters who only slouch and shriek ''F -- - orfff!''
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
There's no doubt that Leigh gets inside his characters' lives. But that's often someplace we'd rather not be.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A mostly glum, gray and grim story lit by a fugitive sunbeam.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Grueling, heavy-handed, and surprisingly insight-free. For once, a gaggle of Leigh characters hasn't jelled beyond the level of its cast's conceits.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Will probably appeal only to the most committed of Leigh fans.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Leigh piles up woe wider and higher than ever before. That he has done so with his usual skill, perception and alertness to relieving gestures of human tenderness and care does not keep All or Nothing from being a pretty glum, overly familiar business.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
This feelbad movie makes you glad when it's over.
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
The empathy never lifts off -- never becomes poetry. It doesn't help that Leigh indulges his unfortunate habit of larding the soundtrack with draggy, mournful music, heavy on the cello.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Though more cathartic than redemptive, this sob-racked confession is the payoff for two hours of low-grade misery.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
H C. gave it a6:
I found this film somewhat better than Vera Drake, though it still reveled in its own misery for far too long. Technically, I loved the way it was shot, and the actors' portrayals of their characters--Leslie Manville, Alison Garland & Sally Hawkins were particularly memorable--as was Timothy Spall's 1000-yard stare. However--this gets old and strangely familiar--I wouldn't say mocking, but there is something patronizing/condescending about this film even though Leigh clearly loves these characters. I can't help but think there is some needed artifice missing though I understand this is my own preference.
amurabi m. gave it a6:
A sad and realistic story set in London that proves the universality of routine and despair. In this movie, director Mike Leigh tries to dissect the reasons of desperation when a bunch of characters´dealing with loneliness, solitude and alienation in contemporary society. Too many subplots, and a little bit slow (you have to stay awake and struggle with boredom along the way) but "All or Nothing" worth it ´cause in the realistic portrait of misery that describes it perceives a sense of universality in the rutinary sadness.
Joseph C. gave it a 10:
Greatest movie of the last 2-3 years, hands down. The most genuine portrait one will see on film of what love, without judgment, might mean.
Chad S. gave it an 8:
"A child only a mother could love," will float around your head as you watch the prodigal couch potato imitate a beached whale in this bleak, bleak, bleak film. Stay awake and you'll be rewarded(if that's the right word for it) with a most remarkable scene of marital anguish and reconciliation that will leave you shaken. The haunted look Timothy Spall wears throughout the film is explained. Leslie Manville, as his wife, impresses. She and Spall are convincinly wretched. When they finally smile, it's more cathartic for the audience, because Mike Leigh's "Secrets and Lies" was a musical/comedy compared to "All or Nothing". Remember, it was the last film the Hale-Bopp cult saw before they committed suicide.
