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COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
The title character in Mike Leigh's "Vera Drake" is a radiant middle-aged cleaning lady (Imelda Staunton) who races through her London working-class neighborhood singing to herself. The time is 1950, and the city still suffers from wartime austerities; the sun, as if refusing its warmth to the lower classes, never seems to penetrate the narrow alleys and pinched little rooms. But Vera brings the light. A short, pudding-faced woman, she clambers up stairways and drops in on her invalid mother and other elderly people, staying just long enough to pull a blanket tighter, say a few words of sympathy, and get the water boiling for tea; then she makes her way to the houses of the wealthy, whose objets d'art and fireplace grilles she dusts and polishes, sometimes on her knees. At home, she is the center of a happy family: her husband, Stan (Phil Davis), a bluff, shrewd, decent man, delights in his wife's enormous competence, and their two grown children, who still live with them, depend on her for everything. Vera gives of herself freely and easily, and it is precisely in that selfless and attentive way--brisk, efficient, consoling--that she shows up in the flats of unhappy young women, and, using a rubber tube and a noxious solution, terminates one unwanted pregnancy after another. In between her regular jobs and visits, Vera is an amateur abortionist, performing...
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