MovieChat Forums > Vera Drake (2005) Discussion > The movie itself...opinions only

The movie itself...opinions only

posted 17 years ago by niki4507
11 replies | jump to latest

I just finished watching Vera Drake and was surprised at how unbiased the filmakers were in creating the movie. They fairly presented both angles, pro-life and pro-choice, as well as the loopholes that allowed wealthy young women to be given medical treatment for the termination rather than Ms. Drake's more dangerous approach. While I do not condone abortion unless the woman is a rape victim and had no choice or control over protection, I do support this movie. It shows real situations and the proper terror of women who found themselves in trouble and did not have the birth control methods we have today. It also showed the desperation of women in the working class who could not afford to have another child or were taken advantage of. Today, these issues are shouted from street corners, but in the 1950s, an unmarried pregnant woman was to be ashamed of her condition, even if she was raped. She was not the victim, and the blame was often placed on her. The movie does an excellent job of separating good intentions from law. It didn't matter why she broke the law; the fact was, she commited a crime. Sure, the situations with the young women were skewed, and "psyciatric" treatment was offered if you could pay the doctor to pronounce you mentally unbalanced and at risk of personal harm if the pregnancy were left intact.

I would really like to avoid the pro-life/pro-choice argument because there are too many posts arguing the facts and nothing is being done about them. I do think the government should provide birth control pills as options for young women for our own protection as the world is no longer fully filled with noble knights and princes on white horses. Please girls, be thankful that we live in a society where regulating birth before it happens is an option and we can choose to use methods of contraception. We are not frowned upon by society for choosing it. Society was not always that way, and now condoms, IUDs, birth control pills, morning-after pills, and tubal ligation are possible and available in most advanced countries.

When I say society, I mean the US because I cannot readily influence the practices of other countries, but I can speak about and influence what occurs in my own.

[–] dellascott2004 16 years ago

Actually I didn't think that the film was that impartial, though of course the blurbs in my video guides(especially Maitlin)said it would be. They said no polemics, but standard talking points did come out of characters' mouths,not Vera, but others, Reg , for example. At one point, Vera's and her husband are discussing their son's "black and white" view of the world, and conclude, that it is becasue he's young, as if situational ethics are a mark of maturity. I should say up front I'm a pro-lifer in the fullest sense.
Don't get me wrong--it's a good film. I would recommend it. Imelda Staunton's acting was amazing and the rest of the cast was pretty good, too. I just don't consider it an even-handed treatmenat of the abortion issue, though I can see how many of the kind of people who review movies in mainstream publications would see it so. I guess that I was struck by several things. First, what a dim bulb poor Vera was. Clearly, she was a very good-hearted person, helping out old people, etc. and brave, too. And the devotion she and her husband had was touching. But she was clearly a useful idiot for old wheeler-dealer Lily. It stretches crdibility that she would do procedures for that many years without renumeration, unless she maybe didn't realize what was at risk. It stretches credibility that she wouldn't have had any body get sick or die in all those years until Pamela Barnes. She used language to lie to herself and others about what she was doing. You could see this when the women questioned her about what to expect in the next 48 hours. She refused to use any but the most euphemistic language, as she did when she said what she did was "help girls in trouble." Maybe she wasn't so dumb after all. Beware of games with language in matters of ethics.

An aside--maybe someone knows the answer--this was in 1950, but their seemed to still be rationing and shortages of some commodities. I just assumed that once the war was over, all that ended. Or was it different in England? What does anybody know about this? Can't ask parents--they're dead.

"I didn't betray you--I put a stop to you."

[–] ahrawrah 16 years ago

I also didn't think the film was impartial -- definitely leaned pro-choice, it seems. The pro-life opinion (the son's disgust, Vera's sister-in-law refusing to sit near her at Christmas dinner) is brought up briefly, but those reactions weren't explored deeply.

I thought that Vera just didn't know what was at risk and just barely knew how to do the procedure herself. Every time she explains it to one of the girls, she uses the same exact words. She can't go deeper. She can only explain so much. Vera didn't know most of the girls very well, and probably never saw them again. Maybe it was the first time a girl went to the hospital knowing Vera's name. She didn't tell the others we see her operating on. Vera just got lucky all this time.

According to Wikipedia, Lily was dealing in "a black-market trade in scarce postwar foodstuffs."

Does she get in any trouble? I was expecting it...but I guess getting paid for abortions she didn't perform wasn't illegal.

[–] Leda74 16 years ago

Rationing did not end in Britain until 1958.

Hey! Who turned out the lights?

[–] retailmonica 15 years ago

I, myself, am pro-life in every circumstance... that said, however, I found this movie remarkably impartial. I think it was done in a 'documentary' sort of way. Even today, where abortions are legal, you will have people who find them wrong, though they understand the complications of life (Stan), those who find them wrong, no explanation necessary (Sid), and those who just don't want to be around criminals (Frank's Wife).

I think that you are meant to see the situation through Vera's eyes to some extent, in the sense that intentions are not always smart (which she somewhat concludes when she hears of Pamela Barnes), but she feels as maybe you or I do, that what she believes is the good thing to do. The burden of having a child in some of these circumstances can't be underestimated, no matter how we feel about abortion. You should at least be able to sympathize with her that those girls would be left in terrible circumstances, regardless of how it should be dealt with.

But in addition to Vera's standpoint, we do have other things to consider, which are represented well in the investigators, who didn't ever get angry with her, and were very sympathetic to her (as they told the judge how distressed she became at hearing about Pamela's condition). Also, there is the presentation of Sid, who never asked himself if maybe his mother had a child she didn't want, and was forced into a life of hardship. He simply says "abortion=murder=wrong" which is how many people view the situation, but what his father was asking him to do is see that his mother isn't "a criminal", as Frank's Wife treats her. She wanted to do good, but intentionality isn't the only thing you need in these cases. Sid should love her still because of what she was hoping to do, "help young girls", but that doesn't mean he has to love what she did.

There should be a lot of attention paid to how Frank's wife treats Vera. If you notice, before they even know what happened, she's upset about her being kept in the house. She didn't have an opinion because it was an abortion, just that Vera was "a criminal" (as she later calls her), thus she is not in the same position as Sid or Stan.

The movie also shows the stark contrast between poverty and wealth, which I found to capture all of these different situations and viewpoints, especially unscripted, is quite phenomenal cinematography.

[–] prettyh 15 years ago

I love this comment. In spite of having somewhat different views than you, retailmonica, I can really appreciate your analysis of the film. You covered points that I missed entirely in my comment below. Brava!

~ http://prettyh.blogspot.com/ ~

[–] Noir-It-All 12 years ago

dellascott2004 on Mon Apr 6 2009 13:23:44
/An aside--maybe someone knows the answer--this was in 1950, but their seemed to still be rationing and shortages of some commodities. I just assumed that once the war was over, all that ended. Or was it different in England? What does anybody know about this? Can't ask parents--they're dead./

You can ask people who were alive during the decade after the war ended. I've heard that there were seven years of austerity when food and most things were rationed. Another poster said that rationing ended in 1948. Remember that the ports had been bombed badly, and the cities they were part of, too and agriculture and industry was in disarray. I think Liverpool was bombed 500 times. Birmingham, London, definitely. Other cities and towns like Coventry were bombed.

My inlaws were British. They said that they ate better during the war.

It took the Marshall Plan from the US and also a plan from the UN (or what it was before it was formed) just to keep Europeans alive.

"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne

[–] prettyh 16 years ago

First off, it has to be said that I LOVE wandering into a thread on IMDb where the topic is such a hot-button issue, but finding only rational and intelligent discussion from differing sides! Blissfully refreshing! :)

I'd seen this film when it first came out on DVD, but I'd gotten called away and missed portions of it. I finally got to see it in full last night on TV, and I'm glad I did; Imelda Staunton blew me away with those long close-ups that telegraphed so much of what her character was thinking and feeling. It was impressive to see how much we could glean about the entire story just from her eyes. (I had no clue until coming here moments ago that the film was unscripted - that adds a whole new level of WOW for me.)

I'm sort of mixed on how effective the filmmakers were as far as staying unbiased (pro-life vs pro-choice) is concerned. I applaud their valiant effort, although I think, organically, there was going to be a slight slant toward the pro-choice side of things if we were to have any sympathy for Vera. (I myself am pro-choice, in the interest of full disclosure, but not rabidly so, which allowed me to take what the film was offering at face value, I hope.) I agree with a lot of points raised in each of the above posts, actually; I too noted the bit where Sid is said to be "black and white" about everything, with the addition of "he's young; he'll come around." Then again, that may have been more to show us that the characters were pro-choice, and not necessarily the entire film and its creators...if that makes any sense! I liked the delicate balance they struck with the arrest and the arraignment scenes etc. - it was clear that the police were repulsed by what Vera was doing, but they never treated her poorly for it. That was an exceptional way of putting across as opinion-neutral an environment as a filmmaker can, IMHO.

If asked, "Was the movie for or against abortion?"...I don't know that I could answer definitively either way. And I think that speaks to the high quality of the performances and the way the writers/director opted to tell the story. I never felt like I was being preached at one way or another, and I genuinely felt empathy for all sides, despite having my own opinions on the subject. Truly the mark of a well-crafted movie. The fact that several of us can converge in this thread, all having different stances on abortion, and exchange opinions without conflict also seems to indicate that the film did its job - it was thought-provoking without telling us what to think. If only there were more films out there like this one, about other strong subjects!

~ http://prettyh.blogspot.com/ ~

[–] gremma 15 years ago

I find it amazing that women can pronounce themselves "Pro-Life" when speaking of a time in the world that they know absolutely nothing about. Today's child making a stand on "Pro-Life" when they have absolutely no idea what it is like to have so many children that there are 4 or 5 sleeping in one room; or a single woman who will live with the stigma of 'unmarried mother' for the rest of her life and no respectable man would ever marry her. So her misstep or rape will cost her any chance of a "Happily Ever After" there is no hope of that now. This true story takes place in England where there are definite class distinctions, and your place in society means everything, you can go down but never up. Families with more children than they can support simply have to make the bread go further, no welfare, no supplements. In the US in the 1950's it was shameful just to be divorced so one can only imagine what it was like to be pregnant and unmarried. We have had life where "Pro Life" was the only choice, and I believe it a miserable failure. Back alley abortions or children being born to mothers who did not want them, children being neglected and abused. Life under any circumstances is both naive and cruel. I'd expect better opinions from women. I don't like abortions, education on safe sex would be preferable. I made my speech to my son and his friends, their were no unwanted pregnancies in his graduating class. The decision to have an abortion is, and should be, an agonizing one; I believe we will have to stand in front of our higher power and explain this decision, we don't need old white men deciding for us now.

[–] dbh850 11 years ago

Gremma - four years after you wrote it, I am reading your comments and appreciating your insight, wisdom, intelligence, and plain ol' common sense! The anti-choice movement is so focused on that narrow view of things. They NEVER consider reality - the actual life experience of women who find themselves in this spot. I loved every word you wrote here!

P.S. "Pro-life" is a misnomre - there is NO such thing as "anti-life" and there IS such a thing as CHOICE - and that is the difference between the groups.

You know what they say... no one with missing teeth wears an Armani suit.

[–] skizzzo63 11 years ago

> "P.S. "Pro-life" is a misnomer"

I agree. They actually are "pro-fetus".
Most of them (not the ones writing in this thread, perhaps) don't give a damn about other people's lives (blacks? Poors? Middle-Easterners? Who cares!).
They are simply obsessed with fetuses, but they don't care (much) anymore for the real people around.

I bet most of those self-professed "pro-lifers" are in favour of the death penalty and war/invasions in other countries, too.
Yeah, "pro-life" indeed!

---
The only sure thing we know: we don't know everything - and we never will.

[–] bear022013-588-696101 9 years ago

It is only a movie.However,abortion is the murder of a baby.
The penalty for an abortionist must be death.