Housewife, 49 (2006)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Lack of good storyline.

Absolutely brilliant

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The 'plot' of this film is largely determined by the true story of Nella Last - although another reviewer has questioned how accurately the film reflects the content of her letters. The stories of the readers of Nella's letters at Mass Observation must be invented; but I enjoyed the counterpoint of those scenes.The real story of the film is interpersonal relations - within Nella's family, and with her neighbours. Emotion (love, arrogance, jealousy, cruelty) and lack of emotion are central. The backdrop of the war, and the fear (and actuality) of losing people raise the stakes for those involved. Nella breaks out from being a very timid, downtrodden woman to a more confident, opinionated person by the end of the film.I think that a lot of subtle jokes based on the mores, culture and politics of Britain at the time will probably have been missed - particularly if you're not from Britain.I found this film an accurate and moving picture of real people in the context of war. It was very well written and acted.I must take issue with the last reviewer on one point. It was made very plain that the film was set in Barrow, not London. Bombing raids took place all over Britain in the second world war. Barrow is 290 miles from London.

Victoria Wood is a famous British comic actress who has surely shown that she also has a superior for drama - both writing and acting - in this excellent made for television film based upon a real person. During World War II in England, housewife, Nella Last's experiences were recorded by the Mass-Observation organization founded in 1937 to record the daily experiences of British citizens for social research.The film starts with Nella as being almost complete frustrated with her role as housewife. She is a middle-aged woman who has devoted her entire self to the care of her husband and their two sons. The war has just started, and her sons are leaving to serve in duties other than combat.Nella's only connection with anything creative is her younger son. He is the one who encourages his mother to go beyond the confines of the house in order to seek fulfillment. Nella begins to blossom when she volunteers for the Women's Voluntary Service and starts to submit her observances of daily occurrences to Mass-Observation.Over the objections of her husband - a joiner - Nella volunteers for the WVS. There she must face the insults of the women in charge for she is merely the wife of a laborer whereas they are wives of members of higher classes. With spunk and wit, Nella forges ahead and becomes an invaluable member of the organization.At home, Nella receives almost no support from her husband - a man not able to express emotion. Because of this weakness, he appears to be somewhat of a villain, but there are a few touching scenes in the screenplay where the viewer is able to see past his hard surface to a man who genuinely loves his wife.Nella's son, Cliff, may be the most complex character in the film. Clifford Last who eventually entered battle was wounded and after the war, moved to Australia where he became a well-known sculptor.This is a fine film that gives insight into the lives of women of Nella's generation and invites the viewer into an "everyday family" that is certainly far from that.

I watched this because there wasn't much else on TV at the time and this seemed to be the best of a bad lot. What luck! I may otherwise have missed this beautiful and sensitive piece of television. It's a gem. Beautifully written and with excellent direction. Every acting performance, down to the smallest role, creates a real and recognizable character. The dialog is spot on and coveys so much in so few words. The changing dynamics of the relationship between husband and wife and mother and son were so real and so moving. It captures the mood of the times as described to me by older English people who lived through the war and the air-raids. I was sometimes chuckling and sometimes close to tears. I loved it. Bravo Ms Wood and bravo those who financed it and brought it to us.

As a long time fan of Ms Wood, I was very happy to watch this sojourn into the drama world. The writing contained her usual naturalistic flow, the evocation of 1940's Barrow was superb and the journey portrayed by Ms Wood as Ella was totally believable.The subtle way in which she dealt with such issues as those raised by her son Cliff was heartening and again true of the period. Her grasp of the historical perspective, the way families lived and coped with the war was so very true and at the end of the film I was left with a sense of having witnessed real life not a drama.Great acting from David Threlfall and Stephanie Cole.The best thing on TV over Christmas by far!