Nuts in May (1976, Mike Leigh) (Patreon)

55/100

Heavily indulges my least favorite aspect of Leigh's work, viz. his delight in titanically irritating eccentrics. When it's a supporting character, like Timothy Spall's Aubrey in Life Is Sweet, I can just grit my teeth and wait those scenes out; here, Keith is front and center almost continually, and a little of his strident pomposity goes a very long way for me. Imagine an English amalgam of Cliff Claven and Charles Emerson Winchester III, nattering on in his bullying way at feature length with almost zero pushback. Mind you, I'd defend Sloman's performance as superlative—he's expertly unbearable and declines to soften the guy so much as a jot throughout. I just, y'know, kinda couldn't bear him. Candice Marie is far more tolerable (by design), though Steadman takes care to depict her as a passive accomplice rather than merely a long-suffering victim; she also gets to conclude the film on a high note, performing a riotously terrible folk song that prefigures Phoebe's Central Perk performances (to keep the sitcom references going, since that's really the level at which this is pitched). Feared for a while that I might actively dislike Nuts in May, which would be unprecedented for me and Leigh, but the addition of first Ray and then a handful of others shifts its dynamic toward comedy that's not wholly rooted in cringe, and even succeeded in prodding one belly laugh: Keith and Candice Marie lecturing Ray for several minutes about the health hazards of a carnivorous diet, only for Ray to then ask, in seemingly genuine innocence, whether they'd mind if he smokes. Question for my non-existent analyst: Why am I so maddened by hearing two people incessantly, needlessly refer to each other by name? A drinking game in which you down a shot every time Candice Marie ends a sentence with "Keith" would kill every participant before this 81-minute film is even halfway over.