# All or Nothing
**All or Nothing** is a 2002 drama film written and directed by [Mike Leigh](https://www.edgepedia.org/mike-leigh), set on a [South London](https://www.edgepedia.org/south-london) housing estate over a long weekend and centered on a family whose son's heart attack forces his estranged parents to take stock of their relationship. It was a United Kingdom and France co-production, produced by Simon Channing-Williams and Alain Sarde through Thin Man Films and Les Films Alain Sarde, and it competed for the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor) at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/all-or-nothing/) • [2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/aee57923-0379-53ea-bf37-58ddb5ef67f5/all-or-nothing)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writer | Mike Leigh, his first contemporary working-class drama after the period film *Topsy-Turvy* (1999)[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/all-or-nothing/) • [3](https://movingimagesource.us/dialogues/view/243) |
| Principal cast | Timothy Spall (Phil), Lesley Manville (Penny), Alison Garland (Rachel), James Corden (Rory), Ruth Sheen (Maureen), Marion Bailey (Carol)[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/all-or-nothing/) |
| Running time and rating | 128 minutes; rated R in the United States for pervasive language and some sexuality[4](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/all-or-nothing-2002) |
| Cannes 2002 | In Competition; nominated for the Palme d'Or[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/all-or-nothing/) • [5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286261/awards/) |
| UK release | Premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in August 2002; opened across Britain in October on 60 screens, three times as many as *Secrets and Lies*[6](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/aug/16/filmnews.edinburgh02) |
| Box office | $2,845,696 worldwide on a $9,000,000 budget; $201,546 of that in the United States[7](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0286261/) |
| Critical scores | Metascore 72 from 31 reviews; 82% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 93 reviews[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/all-or-nothing/) • [9](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1117377-all_or_nothing) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and characters
Phil Bassett ([Timothy Spall](https://www.edgepedia.org/timothy-spall)) drives a minicab, staring straight ahead as dramas unfold in his back seat. His common-law wife Penny ([Lesley Manville](https://www.edgepedia.org/lesley-manville)) works the checkout at a supermarket. Their daughter Rachel (Alison Garland) cleans at a home for elderly people and buries herself in romance novels; their son Rory ([James Corden](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-corden)) is unemployed and aggressive, spending his days between the table and the sofa with his eyes fixed on the television.[4](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/all-or-nothing-2002) • [1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/all-or-nothing/)
The film follows three families living near one another in a block of working-class flats. Phil and Penny's neighbors include Carol and Ron ([Marion Bailey](https://www.edgepedia.org/marion-bailey) and Paul Jesson), a couple in near-constant alcoholic dissipation, and Maureen ([Ruth Sheen](https://www.edgepedia.org/ruth-sheen)), persistently cheerful and trying to keep track of her hostile teenage daughter Donna (Helen Coker).[10](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/11/01/all-or-nothing-the-proles-of-a-lifetime/7b0c29e5-ba36-4318-8e4f-b9ba7ed14b0b/) Money is a constant pressure: in one scene Phil, owing money to his radio operator, shyly knocks on his daughter's bedroom door to ask if she can spare some change.[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/all-or-nothing-18-140370.html)
The crisis arrives when Rory suffers a sudden heart attack and is rushed to hospital. His parents are finally brought together to rediscover their love, and some of the neighbors become involved in the crisis, each experiencing an emotional journey of their own.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/all-or-nothing/) The narrative narrows to a climactic hospital encounter, and the final half-hour belongs largely to an anguished exchange between Phil and Penny.[12](https://www.myplainview.com/news/article/At-the-Movies-All-or-Nothing-8935446.php) • [11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/all-or-nothing-18-140370.html)
## Leigh's working method
Leigh directed the film with his usual technique, feeling his way to a completed screenplay through extensive improvisations and rehearsals with his ensemble, and allowing cast members to make creative contributions to the story and dialogue.[13](https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1025/p14s01-almo.html) The actors spend months on rehearsal, story development, and dialogue, discovering the emotional truth underlying the drama; although the results are often described as documentary-like and naturalistic, the films are highly crafted and deeply stylized.[3](https://movingimagesource.us/dialogues/view/243) Leigh described the film's subject in his own terms: "I feel that All or Nothing is a film about potential, really, it's about possible fulfilment."[14](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/oct/07/features.mikeleigh)
The film marked a return to the contemporary working-class milieu of Leigh's earlier work after the success of the [Gilbert and Sullivan](https://www.edgepedia.org/gilbert-and-sullivan) period costume drama *Topsy-Turvy* (1999).[3](https://movingimagesource.us/dialogues/view/243) Critics placed it in his lineage of family dramas alongside *Life Is Sweet* and *Secrets & Lies*, the latter of which won him the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1996.[15](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/may/17/cannes2002.cannesfilmfestival1)
## Reception
At Cannes, Derek Malcolm of *The Guardian* called it a strong contender for the Palme d'Or, noting that Leigh illuminated his working-class protagonists with a baleful but essentially sympathetic understanding, and that unlike [Ken Loach](https://www.edgepedia.org/ken-loach) he did not present them as heroes of a class struggle.[15](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/may/17/cannes2002.cannesfilmfestival1) The film failed to win a prize at Cannes, which drew complaints from British critics before its Edinburgh premiere.[6](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/aug/16/filmnews.edinburgh02)
**Performances carried the reviews.** Peter Bradshaw in *The Guardian* called the film sad, funny, poignant and deeply enjoyable, with the great jowly face of Timothy Spall dominating it as "an anti-Buddha of gentle anxiety and emotional hurt".[16](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/oct/18/artsfeatures2) [Anthony Quinn](https://www.edgepedia.org/anthony-quinn) in *The Independent* wrote that Spall was "without peer" at getting beneath the skin of defeated loners, and that the pathos of the Spall and Manville duet was the reason the film might endear itself to audiences beyond the festival circuit.[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/all-or-nothing-18-140370.html) Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars, calling it one of Leigh's very best films and praising closing scenes he described as "just about perfect".[4](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/all-or-nothing-2002) The Los Angeles Times called it arguably the bleakest film of Leigh's career while crediting his skill at inspiring accomplished, unshowy portrayals.[17](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-oct-25-et-all25-story.html) Dissenting reviews found the gloom wearing: the *Wall Street Journal*'s Joe Morgenstern called it a "feelbad movie" that makes you glad when it's over, and the *Washington Post*'s Ann Hornaday predicted it would appeal mainly to committed Leigh fans.[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/all-or-nothing/) • [10](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/11/01/all-or-nothing-the-proles-of-a-lifetime/7b0c29e5-ba36-4318-8e4f-b9ba7ed14b0b/)
Rotten Tomatoes' critics consensus captures the balance: the depiction of the working class can be depressingly bleak, but the performances are wonderfully true to life.[9](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1117377-all_or_nothing)
## Awards and commercial performance
The film received three wins and thirteen nominations. It won British Film of the Year and British Actress of the Year (Lesley Manville) at the 2003 London Critics Circle Film Awards, and Eve Stewart won Best Technical/Artistic Achievement at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and Timothy Spall received British Independent Film Award and European Actor nominations, with Leigh nominated for the European Director award.[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286261/awards/)
Commercially the film earned $2,845,696 worldwide against a $9,000,000 budget, with 92.9 percent of its gross coming from international markets; Spain was the strongest single territory outside the UK at $346,027.[7](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0286261/) The British Board of Film Classification passed the cinema version at 128 minutes on 26 June 2002 for distributor UGC Films UK Ltd, and Studio Canal re-released it on physical media and streaming in 2021.[18](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/all-or-nothing-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0zmzc2mdk)
## Place in Leigh's career and British social realism
Scholarship on British social realism treats the housing estate setting as central to the film. Characters struggle financially but do have jobs, albeit lowly-paid ones in the service sector; the emphasis falls on the emotional costs of unfulfilling work, limited prospects, and the loss of dignity, and the film suggests that the revitalization of the family provides the main psychological protection against the demoralization the characters face.[19](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110707816-018/pdf) Anthony Quinn noted that the film depicts a world that is nearly hermetically sealed: no privileged class is shown oppressing anyone beneath it, and nothing indicates that the people in it long for improved circumstances in society; for them the estate is simply home, not somewhere they need to get away from.[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/all-or-nothing-18-140370.html) According to the BFI, which places the film among British social realist cinema, it is a hard-hitting story of a failing marriage, anchored by a pair of devastating performances from Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville.[2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/aee57923-0379-53ea-bf37-58ddb5ef67f5/all-or-nothing) • [20](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-mike-leigh)
## References
1. [All or Nothing, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/all-or-nothing/)
2. [All or Nothing (2002), British Film Institute](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/aee57923-0379-53ea-bf37-58ddb5ef67f5/all-or-nothing)
3. [A Pinewood Dialogue with Mike Leigh, Museum of the Moving Image, September 25, 2002](https://movingimagesource.us/dialogues/view/243)
4. [All or Nothing movie review, RogerEbert.com, November 1, 2002](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/all-or-nothing-2002)
5. [All or Nothing (2002) Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286261/awards/)
6. [Leigh grateful as new film leaves art house ghetto, The Guardian, August 16, 2002](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/aug/16/filmnews.edinburgh02)
7. [All or Nothing (2002), Box Office Mojo](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0286261/)
8. [All or Nothing Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/all-or-nothing/)
9. [All or Nothing, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1117377-all_or_nothing)
10. ['All or Nothing': The Proles of a Lifetime, The Washington Post, November 1, 2002](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/11/01/all-or-nothing-the-proles-of-a-lifetime/7b0c29e5-ba36-4318-8e4f-b9ba7ed14b0b/)
11. [All or Nothing (18) review, The Independent, October 18, 2002](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/all-or-nothing-18-140370.html)
12. [At the Movies: 'All or Nothing', Associated Press via MyPlainview, October 22, 2002](https://www.myplainview.com/news/article/At-the-Movies-All-or-Nothing-8935446.php)
13. [Life's not fair, and Mike Leigh knows it, The Christian Science Monitor, October 25, 2002](https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1025/p14s01-almo.html)
14. [Mike Leigh at the NFT, The Guardian, October 7, 2002](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/oct/07/features.mikeleigh)
15. [Working class anti-heroes, Cannes 2002, The Guardian, May 17, 2002](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/may/17/cannes2002.cannesfilmfestival1)
16. [All or Nothing review, The Guardian, October 17, 2002](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/oct/18/artsfeatures2)
17. [Woe is high and wide in glum 'All or Nothing', Los Angeles Times, October 25, 2002](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-oct-25-et-all25-story.html)
18. [All Or Nothing, British Board of Film Classification](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/all-or-nothing-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0zmzc2mdk)
19. [Working-Class Precarity and the Social-Realist Tradition in British Cinema, De Gruyter](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110707816-018/pdf)
20. [Where to begin with Mike Leigh, BFI, September 27, 2021](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-mike-leigh)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Biographical and historical drama films 2000s › Released 2000 to 2005*
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