ALL OR NOTHING

Mike Leigh’s drama finds a strange, sweet quality in people whose lives and language are often vile. Its struggling families and neighbors still desire morality and normalcy, and their crisis eventually brings them together to rediscover love. The acting is superb, especially from Timothy Spall and Ruth Sheen.

But that human warmth comes at a serious cost. The film is saturated with foul language, depicts abuse and sexual immorality, and includes extreme alcohol abuse. Its deeper problem is the practical atheism expressed through Phil’s belief that life is only birth and death, with nothing beyond it.

You may find real compassion here, but the film’s answer to human brokenness is crisis rather than Christ. Adults who can weigh that message alongside the content may find the film worthwhile; families with children or young teens should choose something else.

Set in a London housing development over a long weekend, the film follows Phil, a taxi driver, and Penny, who works at a supermarket checkout. Though they never married, they remain bound together as a family.

Their daughter Rachel cleans at a home for elderly people, while their unemployed son Rory is mean-tempered and struggling with alcohol. Around them are neighbors facing poverty, rebellion, abuse, and damaged relationships.

Three stars means this is a well-realized, well-acted drama with genuine emotional power, though its worldview and content are serious liabilities.

The acting is superb. Mike Leigh allows the actors to find their characters and rehearse for three months before filming, and the result is particularly memorable work from Timothy Spall and Ruth Sheen. The film also finds emotional weight in people trying to make do, make it through, and recover love.

Its artistry cannot overcome the abundance of foul language, intense abuse, sexual immorality, and alcohol abuse. Nor does its redemptive movement resolve the deeper problem of practical atheism.

ALL OR NOTHING presents people living at the bottom of British society, surrounded by poverty, strained families, abuse, rebellion, and addiction. The film still recognizes a desire for morality and normalcy, and it suggests that crisis can bring out the best in people and produce redemption.

Phil’s philosophy gives the film’s worldview its clearest expression: “You’re born, you die. That’s it.” This is practical atheism and fatalistic materialism. The characters try to do the right thing, but they do not understand that there is more than this life. The film’s humanist answer is that people are basically good, while society and circumstances push them down; crisis then reveals their better nature.

The review challenges that idea, noting that crisis can also bring out humanity’s sin nature and worst impulses. The film offers love and emotional renewal, but it does not point these struggling people to the love of Jesus Christ, who can redeem fallen human beings. Its moral longing is real, yet its answer remains too small. Scripture says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).

ALL OR NOTHING is well acted and compassionate toward people trying to survive difficult lives. But its practical atheism and heavy adult content require serious discernment. For adults prepared to engage both, it is WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. For everyone else, choose from our family-friendly picks.