Michael Winterbottom's latest offering from behind
the camera is somewhat of a rather diverse entry into the London Film
Festival catalogue this year. Everday,
up against some extremely tough opposition for the Official Competition
Best Film award, is a film from Film4 that will be broadcast on Channel
4 in the UK whilst distributed in other countries in cinemas.
Unfortunately, it seems, the UK are getting the fair end of the deal
with what is is a dismal affair.
Karen (Shirley Henderson)
is a mother of four struggling to cope with the strain of looking after
her children and holding up two jobs whilst her husband Ian (John Simm)
remains in prison waiting for the day he can return to his family. We
follow Karen as she goes through the daily routine of taking the
children to school, picking them up, going to work and ensuring the
family home is as ideal as possible.
Whilst Karen continues to put
on a brave face and suffers the strains of single motherhood, Ian
clings on to the days counting down until he is free for prison and he
can enjoy more than single day trips out of incarceration and visits. As
the days roll on, Karen continues an affair with a local she knows from
the pub and carries herself through an emotional draining life that
sees her with little support and an unclear outlook on the future.
The premise of Michael Winterbottom's Everyday
has all the necessary ingredients to create a powerful and rich drama
that is both affecting and emotionally charged. A mother single-handedly
taking on the task of raising four children whilst their father is in
prison could have raised so much but instead the film heads no further
than the likes of low-key television dramas that all appear clones of
one another.
In John Simm and Winterbottom regular Shirley Henderson, Everyday
possesses two ultimately strong actors who have bagfuls of ability in
order to drive a narrative forward and represent struggle, but even two
such names cannot salvage this mess of a film. If ever a key word could
be applied to Everyday it would forever in the day be 'repetitive'.
We
can all agree that a film surrounding family life should include the
elements of school, mealtimes, and in this case, prison visitations, but
Winterbottom insists on continuing the same formula and events
throughout the duration of the film. In doing so, the director creates a
90-minute film which actually feels like it is in fact much, much
longer.
If
déja-vu in the story element of the film wasn't enough, then look no
further than the film's dismal score. Driven by a number of strings
droning together to create a supposedly quaint and emotive score, the
music within the film is yet again used over and over again causing the
viewer to question how the editing process missed such gaping issues.
Such astrosities are unforgivable in film but in Winterbottom's Everyday
one cannot fathom how these noticeable flaws could have been missed,
especially as the project took five years to fully complete. Five years
of filming meant that the director was able to show a gradual aging of
the children of the piece, a nice touch to be sure, but in concentrating
on this element, missed some rather serious issues along the way.
An abomination of filmmaking that barely deserves its place on the small screen, let alone cinema screens, Everyday
lacks cohesion, emotional attachment and a solid script. Repetitive in
both its dialogue and musically, Michael Winterbottom falls well short
of powerful drama and instead lets down his two often superb leads and
even the promising young children of the piece. Dull, disappointing and
ridiculously dismal, Everyday proves that five years preparation of a film still isn't enough to make a good film.
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