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Life is Sweet

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Film Info

UK 1996 | 142 min. Director: Mike Leigh
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Project / Host

European Film Awards

Synopsis

Hortense is a young black optometrist, living in London. She weeps at her mother´s funeral. Her father is already dead. They are her adoptive parents, and now she feels the need to try to find her birth mother. She receives instructions to visit a social worker, who, along with some general sympathetic advice, gives her her case file. From this, Hortense discovers to her surprise and consternation that her birth mother was white. Her mother is Cynthia, a sad, unmarried woman who works in a factory, and lives in a shabby terrace house with her daughter Roxanne, a council road sweeper. They do not get on. Cynthia´s surroundings contrast sharply with those of Maurice, her younger brother, a successful suburban portrait and wedding photographer. His modern house boasts beautiful interior decoration, the work of his childless wife, Monica. Cynthia and Maurice´s mother having died when they were children, Cynthia effectively brought Maurice up. They have not seen or spoken to each other for some time, and they miss each other. Maurice feels guilty about his neglect, Cynthia resentful. No love is lost between Cynthia and Monica. Maurice visits Cynthia, who becomes very emotional. He announces that he and Monica intend to throw a small barbecue party for Roxanne´s 21st birthday. Meanwhile, having gone to some lenghs to track Cynthia down, Hortense plucks up the courage to phone her.

Cast & Crew

Cast & Crew

Mike Leigh
 Simon Channing-Williams
 Mike Leigh
 Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, Brenda Blethyn, Claire Rushbrook, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Elizabeth Berrington, Michele Austin, Lee Ross
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