Leo Leigh’s likeable but wonky feature debut offers a meandering trawl through the doomed love life of a mature party shop owner.
The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree in Leo – son of Mike – Leigh’s feature debut as director and writer, as the gently ambling, seriocomic Sweet Sue plays like one of his pop’s early, funny ones. Yet there’s something that doesn’t quite scan with this story of a thrill-seeking middle-aged woman who runs a dismal party goods store and her misadventures on the dating scene. Maggie O’Neill plays Sue as practically-minded and without any airs or graces. She is on the prowl for personal happiness, and if you’re not with her on this mission, you’re against her.
Following a contextual prologue which captures her romantic and familial frustrations, she’s whisked away by surly, stacked biker Ron (Tony Pitts), and what initially appears as an ideal connection between two lost souls ends up as something of a nightmare as we meet divorcee Ron’s insane family of grotesques.
It all feels very slight, with Leigh apparently undecided if this is a film about the awkward relationship trials of the central couple, or a survey of English working-class manners. Though Sue does not come away from this with a clean rap sheet, morally speaking, some of the characters she meets along the way (a sexually tormented bigot, a self-regarding YouTuber) aren’t extended a similar empathy. It’s a strange, disjointed film that lacks a clear structure and a satisfying denouement, even if O’Neill excels at channelling her prior years in the emotional doldrums via her stern, seen-it-all-before manner.
Published 21 Dec 2023
Leo Leigh looks into the dark heart of the boomer dating circuit.
Rambling and unfocused, despite a couple of stand-out moments and soulful central turn.
Perhaps the film Leigh Jr needed to make in order to iron out some kinks in his process.
Another gorgeous tragicomic farce from Finnish maestro Aki Kaurismäki, a heartfelt cinephile ode to the possibility of love among the working classes.
Clio Barnard’s refreshingly grounded, social realist riff on the classic romcom is one of her finest works to date.
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