Stylish but barely mediocre overall

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The first must-see film of the year.

I really like this guy; he did Secrets and Lies, and Happy-Go-Lucky, and I'm about to check out "Life is Sweet." I'm on some nostalgic, vintage Britain trip. I first saw All or Nothing about 10 years ago, on cable, and came in halfway and, being an American, the times it was put on cable were about once every several years. And at the time I was in high school and didn't have my own personal computer or money to order a DVD so I just vaguely sulked missing this film. Now that I have my own means to hunt the film out I'm so glad I have! And with my trusty dusty internet I am able to see all these VHS gems I've stored over the years, like the first movies I mentioned, have the same director. So I feel I'm doing something right as far as taste, or Mike Leigh is. The film is about a connection of lives on a council estate/public housing complex. There's a couple with two kids that are less than models and not exactly skilled office workers, and neither are the parents. It's an overweight family of care home workers, supermarket workers, cabbies, and a bone-idle brat. You get the mother who has late-night timeouts to herself to grieve her existence, and the dad who digs for loose change under the cushions his couch potato son lounges on, a scene that silently, ironically shows how the cycle of poverty will continue within this family. Then there's the mother's friend, who is a drunk and her daughter is the council slag basically, who tries to steal the boyfriend of her mother's other friend's daughter. The daughter is Donna, a right stroppy girl who values her looks and nothing else of herself, which gives her a bad attitude that ruins her looks; the entire film she has a rough sneer on her face, or tear-stained makeup. The film shows the stereotypes without inducing eyerolls. Just like in Secrets and Lies (an AMAZING FILM that gives you laughs and tears), the soundtrack isn't cliché rap music to add to the mood of the urban setting, but it's somber violin music and no offputting lyrics. I don't know if the violin music is done to be ironic or if it's a way to ease and appease the upper-class or older viewers who probably need a break from all the aggression. But it's a contrast and kind of makes me giggle because it's music you'd hear in a Jane Eyre miniseries, and not in a film about rough "chavs" (I hate that word, but it's an inevitable and long standing part of English society, so.) Speaking of, then there's stuff like Daniel Mays who plays Donna's boyfriend, and his strong accent, and his entire script along with the other characters' is a rather intriguing glossary of chav slang like "doing my head in" and "bollocks" and "having a laugh"...it's endless yet not nauseating or annoying or forced. I'm not quite sure how much was ad-libbed/"mumblecore," or Mike Leigh's hand but I raised an impressed eyebrow at how Mike Leigh was able to do that, use that underclass attitude to add to the realism while making it funny without mocking them or ruining the film. So the social context of British historical and current events that create the too real contemporary "chav" culture is strong here, and Mike Leigh nicely portrays this bleak society somehow in many of his films.My only bone to pick is the actress who plays Donna. At first it seems like she is overdoing it but I know young women really do act this way and with their mums. Plus, she is pregnant, which makes women moody sometimes, and she has every reason to be angry if you look at the very utilised backdrop of impoverished tower blocks and screaming neighbours and a horrible boyfriend. It seems the actress has to really put on this hard act and bad attitude and her incessant "Shuh-ups!" to emphasise that her character is a chav and not a "regular" London girl. It's this attitude and accent and lingo that sets "chavs" apart from others, though they are a huge part of the demographic makeup in England and other parts of Britain. So I got over it. It is a bit crazy though that when she's battered and falls pregnant does this bring her and her single mother together. I think this lifestyle of unintelligent people was shown very intelligently. On the cable that I have it was ranked with 2 1/2 out of 4 stars. I know critics can be fickle but I was wondering why it didn't at least get 3. So perhaps the harsh setting and reality of white Brits (who are classically and mostly shown in film and art and music to be posh, upper-classed, intellectual) being shown here as the complete opposite was a hard pill to swallow and probably written off as hammed up rubbish, but no. I think it's got a skeleton of reality here under the embellishing skin of dramatic fights, and relationships, like Sally Hawkins flirting with a mentally challenged kid and how she chomps on gum the entire time and keeps flaring her nostrils. I'm not British so I don't know how many "rude girls" strut around provocatively on the estate all day, but regardless I don't think she played the role well to be honest. Someone *like* Lauren Socha perhaps, who can play chav rather naturally and endearingly.Anyway there's nothing here that I find unrealistic as far as the households and characters within and around, nor the situations they're in, nor how most of the actors/actresses played them, albeit some over the top, and I really appreciate this tour through the other half of British real life. Fine writer/director.

Aside from Naked, I've been left disappointed in Mike Leigh's films and all for the exact same reason – sub plots and sub characters that are more interesting than the main plot & characters but don't get developed and are left as loose ends.This has been a reoccurring theme in the 3 Mike Leigh films I have watched recently (All or Nothing, Meantime and Life Is Sweet). In each case, there are characters and sub plots that come along and start to look interesting but just as they seem to be going somewhere, they are forgotten about as the main characters & storyline take over for about the last 20 minutes and everything else is just left unresolved. I have finished each of these films thinking "why??!" What is even more perplexing is that the sub plots and sub characters are usually more interesting than the main plots & characters. But even if they weren't, it's not very good writing or film making to start a storyline and just leave it mid air. It doesn't make any sense and yet it seems to be a theme in his films.Aside from that, I struggled to enjoy All or Nothing. James Cordon's character was great and interesting, but the remaining 3 family members were dull, weak, mopey and annoyingly subordinate. I found the reconciliation between the wife and husband at the end to be weak and unconvincing.I wish there had been more time spent on the 2 trashy girls who live in the same block of flats. Both them and their families were a lot more interesting.

I've just read some of the other comments on this film and am now engaged in a bout with writers block because in no way will I begin to shed a better light on our subject film than the engaging analyses already posted on this site. This tale about a lower working class South London family in a nondescript housing project is one that simultaneously depresses and uplifts the spirit. You'll find no plastic yuppie rich boy/girl "wannabee" hot shots roaming about the screen, spewing ostentatious insipidities in this film. These are people on the low end of the economic ladder who make no pretensions or excuses for their situation in life.Mike Leigh and company totally hit the proverbial nail on the head in this one. Suffice it to say that Tim Spall and Lesley Manville each rendered riveting performances in their portrayals of the unmarried couple with two grown kids. The realistic "mise en scene" and the accompanying dialog/story line were grittily absorbing works of art, especially the long scene toward the film's conclusion. I may as well bestow kudos to the rest of the cast as well because their contributions, both individually and collectively, greatly augmented the story line as a whole. This modern gem, in its ambient unpretentiousness, so capably underscores the unmitigated power of love, acceptance, and triumph of the spirit no matter how grim the situation.

Every single character is either fat, stupid, unable to communicate, unable to enjoy life or a combination of the afore mentioned. This movie goes out of its way to rub in the ways in which communication can fail and it tries a lot to be supposedly different to Hollywood garbage. Yet I can't help thinking that this is a great movie for people who hate people and really quite enjoy a feeling of superiority to all the idiocy and misery in this movie. There are 2 ways of escaping the fact you are boring, fat and stupid: Watch action movies or watch movies about even more boring, fat and stupid people. Most of the characters are very clichéd. There's this French lady with her unconvincing broken English who happens to use only French words that any half-schooled supposedly intelligent and irony-understanding genius who likes films like this will understand. Having said all that - I wish there was some kind of miracle and a year in which only movies like this were released worldwide and people would be so p..ed off... Especially in the Land of unlimited opportunities. Better yet, have them be films with some wit like "Happiness".