Gender Stereotypes In Mike Leigh's Film

Pregnancy has been a prominent theme throughout many of Leigh’s films. In his book Mike Leigh (contemporary film directors), Sean O’Sullivan discusses the “line of mysteriously pregnant women in Leigh’s cinema” and how in some of the films “the pregnancy is a problem: to be gotten rid of, to be pursued to its end, to be debated and queried” (cfd). This is true for both Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake. O’Sullivan explains that in Secrets and Lies, “We may never find out who Hortense Cumberbatch’s father is, but the entire film rotates around one woman’s desire to discover the identity of her father and another woman’s desire to hide his identity” (O’Sullivan). He notes that more broadly, pregnancy in Leigh’s films “serves as a figure of potentiality,
Vera provides illegal abortions in 1950 after doing so for several years. She finally faces some unforeseen consequences when a young woman dies after one of her abortions. Vera is played by Imelda Staunton, who, like most actresses in Leigh’s films, knew nothing about what going to happen to her character. Imelda has shared in interviews that the long close-up of her shocked, saddened face when the police first enter Vera’s house is so effective because of her own personal shock in that moment. This is an example of how Leigh’s improvisational methods contribute greatly to the creation of organic, authentic performances. When asked about the topic of abortion, Leigh suggests that viewers will find “abortion and abortion-related issues” in a lot of his films. He adds, “It is part of the general business of living and dying — of having children or not having them, and the need to have them or not have them” (filmmaker magazine). Vera Drake, of course, is Leigh’s film viewers associate most with the word “abortion”. Vera Drake was successful in part because of its relevance to today’s abortion debate. For some people it raises usual questions about when life begins or when a foetus acquires human rights. The issue raised in the film is not about these questions of right vs. wrong. Politics writer Polly Toynbee argues that “Vera Drake is a timely reminder of mundane reality: whenever abortion is hard to get, thousands of desperate pregnant women end up dead or maimed” (guardian). These “timely reminders” and abortion-related questions are all valuable, but the power of the film comes from Vera. When Vera performs abortions, she refers to it as “helping women out” and does so without charge or judgement. After Vera is caught by the police, the mood darkens and some unsettling moments follow. In the scene of her trial, there is a poignant moment when the tools she