After a departure of sorts with 1999's "Topsy-Turvy," respected filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to traditional form, serving up thick, meaty slices of life - gristle and all - with "All or Nothing," an often deeply moving depiction of the brittle lives of several inhabitants of the same London housing complex.

It may lack the intrigue (and that memorable Brenda Blethyn performance) of "Secrets & Lies," which took home a Palme D'Or in 1996, but Leigh's in masterful control of his craft here. His highly attuned ensemble, led by regulars Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville, keep all those tucked-away emotions fervidly flickering just below the surface.

Given Leigh's longtime following, the film should emerge as a reliable specialty draw, though the taxing dialect, at least to North American ears, likely will make subtitling a must.

A quiet desperation hangs like the week's wash over the listless lives of London cabbie Phil (Spall), his common-law wife, Penny (Manville), who is a supermarket cashier at the local Safeway, and pretty much everyone else who lives in the same, dreary grouping of flats.

That also would include their obese kids, Rachel (Alison Garland), who cleans the floors in a home for the elderly, and the unemployed Rory (James Corden), whose concept of a daily exercise regimen is to dive from the dinner table to the sofa.

Then there's the perpetually plastered neighbor Carol (Marion Bailey) and her looking-for-love-in-all-the-wrong-places daughter Samantha (Sally Hawkins) as well as the comparatively chipper Maureen (Ruth Sheen), who also works as a supermarket checker when not doing a mean karaoke.

But that mass emotional disconnect is about to receive a much-needed jolt in the form of a family crisis that will end up injecting a faint glimmer of hope into the lives of all concerned, if at least for a few minutes.

As is his trademark, Leigh again manages to mix some welcome, organic humor in with all the prevailing bleakness.

With his despondent, dog-eared demeanor, Spall contributes an effectively internalized performance, while the equally impressive Manville renders a heartbreaking poignancy in her sad realization that her love for her partner has long ago left the building.

While the thematic grit is still there, the visuals appear considerably less grainy than usual. There's a nice depth of richness to Dick Pope's camerawork and though composer Andrew Dickson's melancholy strings have a habit of underscoring the obvious, they at least know when to back off and let those reflective silences do all the talking.

ALL OR NOTHING
Bac Distribution
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Mike Leigh
Producers: Simon Channing Williams, Alain Sarde
Director of photography: Dick Pope
Production designer: Eve Stewart
Editor: Lesley Walker
Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran
Music: Andrew Dickson
Cast:
Phil: Timothy Spall
Penny: Lesley Manville
Rachel: Alison Garland
Rory: James Corden
Maureen: Ruth Sheen: Carol: Marion Bailey
Samantha: Sally Hawkins.
Running time -- 128 minutes
No MPAA rating