Mike Leigh’s Peterloo is coming out at just the right time amid global protests against our American and British governments. The Peterloo massacre of 1819 so named in reference to Waterloo, which occurred a few years earlier, and took place at St. Peter’s field in Manchester, England. The government charged into a crowd of protectors gathered to protest the awful economic conditions of the time. Mike Leigh has always maintained a high degree of authenticity with his films, which has, in the past, drawn the attention of Oscar voters. Who knows how it will go this year, but Peterloo is distributed by Amazon Studios. Here is the trailer.
“global protests against our American and British governments”
Is that so?
I refuse to believe Mike Leigh can make a bad film and the rumours of poor test screenings confound me.
Although weren’t the rumors about the film being overlong and boring, and those are arguments that some people have been making for years about Leigh’s films (especially the latter one). So maybe this is just people complaining: “This is a Mike Leigh movie and I don’t like Mike Leigh movies”
I choose to believe that.
Mike Leigh (along with PTA) is my favourite living director. Every film he makes is a beauty, and even in the last decade he has managed three exceptional films, so he still has it and fingers crossed that Peterloo is yet another special addition, regardless of what the Oscars think.
Meh.
And yet this gets its own post but Boy Erased hasn’t. I don’t get it.
It took a while for me to become a big fan of Mike Leigh. There were films i did found really good and others just boring. Loved Secret & Lies and Vera Drake, but disliked Happy Go Lucky and specially Topsy-Turvy. Then i watched Naked, Life is Sweet and Another Year and i started really dig his style. But, damn, i will never forget that time i went to see Mr. Turner. It made me see Mike Leigh in a complet new way. That film is pure cinematic genius and he did something really ambitious there (well, Naked has an ambitious screenplay, wich ironically is the only thing Mr. Turner may lack). Peterloo seems very much in the same style, so im looking into it.