Beginning with an evocative long shot down a rest home corridor, a young pudgy girl mops the floor as an elderly lady slowly shuffles towards her destination. Coupled with the melancholy score, it's a visual metaphor for the daily routines of life that lead to the inevitable. Significantly, the nursing home attendant, Rachel (Alison Garland), observes the lady pass and questions whether she's heading the right way, just as she quietly performs the same function in her dysfunctional family that lives in a run-down apartment complex in London. That striking opening sequence alone signals that All or Nothing contains more artistry than most 2002 releases.

Not a lot happens on the surface, but director/writer Mike Leigh populates his movie with a wonderful ensemble cast of characters that bring the routine day to day struggles of the working class to life. Like Fellini, he casts ordinary looking people with memorable faces that match the environment. Many are obese or have notable scars, and nearly all have problems coping with their relative poverty. If it weren't for perky Maureen (Ruth Sheen), who copes with her life's station by cracking subtle jokes and taking her morose companions to a karaoke bar, Leigh's bleak world would feel so hopeless that you'd wonder why they don't collectively sip on some poisoned Guyana punch.

Introspective Rachel spends most of her time reading and observing, and her family forms the central axis of the film. The love and communication have disappeared between Safeway cashier Penny (Lesley Manville) and taxi driver husband Phil (Timothy Spall), and their post-teenage son Rory's (James Corden) vocabulary consists primarily of the two words, "fuck off." Not only does he say this in the seedy-looking grassy apartment commons before punching out one of the neighbors, but he constantly says this to his mother while his 300lb. body flops on the couch in front of the television. The epithet surprisingly gets no reaction from his father either—it's as if Phil has resolved to endure whatever life dishes out until it's over.

That's the same position that Penny takes as well, though she never speaks outwardly of it; it shows on her face. She is the "responsible" one, who gets up early every morning and heads to work—the name "Safeway" is hardly accidental. She yammers at her husband to change his shift to early morning hours to take advantage of more people heading to the airport, yet he chooses to avoid as much contact with his family as possible—working later, spending after hours at the pub, and sleeping in late. Yet underneath Phil retains dreams of escaping their dreary existence with a holiday to DisneyWorld. Underlying this small dream is a greater need that is only openly revealed during a family crisis, giving a measure of hope, but not resolving everything in a false Hollywood style package.

That may frustrate some viewers, while others may not care for the languid pacing of Leigh's film. On the other hand, if you enjoy character studies, All or Nothing will satisfy much more than most 2002 fare. No one portrays the realities of working class life and coordinates an ensemble cast to create mood better than Leigh. It would be fun to see how he'd adapt the bleaker side of Charles Dickens, though this film is an indicator. Spall and Manville are wonderfully understated in their own frustrations and rages as any repressed people would be, creating a realistically dreary canvas of a couple much like the suburban pair in Ordinary People. They are travelling much the same road that we all undertake, so we do care about them by the end of the film—for if they can find some redemption for their lives, perhaps we can as well.