Life Is Sweet

A working-class couple cope with opposite twin daughters and financial problems., Mike Leigh’s situation comedy about a lower middle-class family in the London suburbs is a slice-of-life chronicle that subtly reveals the pain and rage underneath the surface of day-to-day conventions. The youngish parents, Wendy (Alison Steadman) and Andy (Jim Broadbent) live with their 20-something twin daughters, Nicola (Jane Horrocks) and Natalie (Claire Skinner). Natalie, a plumber’s assistant, is clean-cut and forever looks on the bright side of life. Nicola, who is unemployed, has nothing but contempt for conventionality. As the daughters deal with the obsessively sunny Wendy and the lackadaisical Andy, and confront a succession of ne’er-do-well friends and neighbors, a darker picture is painted of this normal family — particularly Nicola, who is convinced she is fat and ugly (despite her emaciated appearance), with Natalie being a constant rebuke to her., Mike Leigh at his best, observing British suburban life with his regular choice of cast in a series of vignettes ranging from the farcical to the tragic that re-inforce the thought that many people lead quiet lives of desperation.