A Way of Life
Encyclopedia
A Way of Life is a British
film released in 2004
starring Stephanie James
and Brenda Blethyn
. It is directed by former child actor
Amma Asante
, and was filmed in South Wales
. The film is a fiction
al drama
which tells the tale of Leigh-Anne Williams, a teenage mother living in a dilapidated Cardiff
council flat.
The father of her baby is in prison (for an undisclosed reason), while Leanne's family is similarly dysfunctional; her mother committed suicide, while her abusive father went on to marry her mother's sister. As well as Gavin, she has a sister in her early teens and a baby sister from her father's marriage to her aunt.
Despite being less than 20 years old, Leigh-Anne has made quite a few significant enemies in her local area. She is involved in constant confrontations with her Turkish
Muslim
neighbour Hassan Osman, and is so desperate to support her baby that she will committ the most shocking acts. One notable act is when she tricks a man out of £30 by pretending to be a pimp. She then gets a younger girl (under the age of consent) to have sex with the man, who is much older.
Three of the few people who have good relationships with Leigh-Anne are her brother Gavin, and Gavin's friends Robbie and Stephen. But they are actively involved in crime and anti-social behaviour, and Leigh-Anne is a willing participant in many of their crimes. She receives regular visits from a social worker, and fears that Rebecca will be taken away from her. Leigh-Anne then sees her social worker talking with Hassan Osman, and believes that Hassan is trying to get Rebecca taken into care.
Leigh-Anne, Gavin, Robbie and Stephen are at a library one day when they come across Hassan Osman and his daughter Julie, who is an ex-girlfriend of Gavin's - their relationship was effectively ended by Hassan's disapproval. An argument starts as they leave the centre and it turns into a full scale street fight in which the three boys attack Hassan while Leigh-Anne looks on.
The story ends when Leigh-Anne returns home and gets a visit from the police, who want to question her in connection with an attack on Hassan Osman - he had died as a result of the beating. She goes to the police station with them and as they are leaving the house, her three friends are also been taken away - Robbie still wearing the bloodstained jumper that he wore during the attack.
The very end of the film sees Leigh-Anne crying uncontrollably in police custody after her daughter has been handed over to Social Services, and her own social worker has informed her that nobody ever wanted to remove her daughter from her, and that the reason she spoke to Hassan Osman was about his own daughter's issues. Meanwhile, Julie reveals to the police that she is pregnant with Gavin's baby.
London Film Festival
and its director won the BAFTA
's "Carl Foreman Award
" for a debut by a British filmmaker, as well as being named The Times
Breakthrough Artist Of The Year at the 2005
South Bank Show Awards. The film also picked up the Fipresci Prize for Best Film at the 2005
Miami International Film Festival
, and a special commendation Signis Award at the 2004
San Sebastian International Film Festival
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
film released in 2004
2004 in film
The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
starring Stephanie James
Stephanie James
Stephanie Beth James is a Welsh actress who began her career in 2004, at the age of 19, when she portrayed the role of single mother Leigh-Anne Williams in the feature film "A Way of Life", in which she portrayed a struggling single parent who was at the centre of a storyline featuring a racially...
and Brenda Blethyn
Brenda Blethyn
Brenda Anne Blethyn, OBE is an English actress who has worked in theatre, television and film. Blethyn has received two Academy Award nominations, two SAG Award nominations, two Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
. It is directed by former child actor
Child actor
The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...
Amma Asante
Amma Asante
-Biography:As a child, Asante attended the Barbara Speake stage school in Acton, London, where she trained as a student in dance and drama. She began her film and television career as a child actress, appearing as a regular in the British school drama Grange Hill...
, and was filmed in South Wales
South Wales
South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...
. The film is a fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
al drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
which tells the tale of Leigh-Anne Williams, a teenage mother living in a dilapidated Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
council flat.
Cast
- Stephanie JamesStephanie JamesStephanie Beth James is a Welsh actress who began her career in 2004, at the age of 19, when she portrayed the role of single mother Leigh-Anne Williams in the feature film "A Way of Life", in which she portrayed a struggling single parent who was at the centre of a storyline featuring a racially...
as Leigh-Anne Williams - Nathan Jones as Gavin Williams
- Brenda BlethynBrenda BlethynBrenda Anne Blethyn, OBE is an English actress who has worked in theatre, television and film. Blethyn has received two Academy Award nominations, two SAG Award nominations, two Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
as Annette (surname unknown) - Marged Esli as a Social Worker
- Oliver HadenOliver HadenOliver Haden is a British actor best known for his role in British film 'Blue Ice' . He has currently left teaching drama at the langley academy He had held this role since April 2005....
as Hassan Osman - Sara GregorySara Gregory-Career:Her debut came in 2003 in Stopping Distance, a film about gang rape in which she appeared as a teenage girl called Melanie.In 2004, she made her second stage appearance, this time as teenager Julie Osman—the daughter of a Turkish Muslim man who was the victim of a racially motivated murder...
as Julie Osman - Dean Wong as Stephen Rajan
- Gary Sheppeard as Robbie Matthews
- Nicholas McGaugheyNicholas McGaugheyNicholas McGaughey is a Welsh television actor best known for playing the character of Brandon Monk in the Welsh soap Pobol y Cwm. He has appeared on a number of top English television programmes such as Casualty in 1998...
as Terry Williams - Amy Morgan as Karen Williams
- Lynsey France as a Housing Officer
- Phillip Howe as Jacob
- Victoria Pugh as a Social Worker
- Danielle Clare Symonds as a Barmaid
Plot
Leigh-Anne Williams's mother committed suicide when she was a child, and she and her brother both suffered abuse at the hands of their father. Leigh-Anne is very protective towards her baby daughter Rebecca, and still has visits from Rebecca's father's mother (Annette) - though Leigh-Anne gets angry when Annette suggests that Rebecca would be better off in her care.The father of her baby is in prison (for an undisclosed reason), while Leanne's family is similarly dysfunctional; her mother committed suicide, while her abusive father went on to marry her mother's sister. As well as Gavin, she has a sister in her early teens and a baby sister from her father's marriage to her aunt.
Despite being less than 20 years old, Leigh-Anne has made quite a few significant enemies in her local area. She is involved in constant confrontations with her Turkish
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
Muslim
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
neighbour Hassan Osman, and is so desperate to support her baby that she will committ the most shocking acts. One notable act is when she tricks a man out of £30 by pretending to be a pimp. She then gets a younger girl (under the age of consent) to have sex with the man, who is much older.
Three of the few people who have good relationships with Leigh-Anne are her brother Gavin, and Gavin's friends Robbie and Stephen. But they are actively involved in crime and anti-social behaviour, and Leigh-Anne is a willing participant in many of their crimes. She receives regular visits from a social worker, and fears that Rebecca will be taken away from her. Leigh-Anne then sees her social worker talking with Hassan Osman, and believes that Hassan is trying to get Rebecca taken into care.
Leigh-Anne, Gavin, Robbie and Stephen are at a library one day when they come across Hassan Osman and his daughter Julie, who is an ex-girlfriend of Gavin's - their relationship was effectively ended by Hassan's disapproval. An argument starts as they leave the centre and it turns into a full scale street fight in which the three boys attack Hassan while Leigh-Anne looks on.
The story ends when Leigh-Anne returns home and gets a visit from the police, who want to question her in connection with an attack on Hassan Osman - he had died as a result of the beating. She goes to the police station with them and as they are leaving the house, her three friends are also been taken away - Robbie still wearing the bloodstained jumper that he wore during the attack.
The very end of the film sees Leigh-Anne crying uncontrollably in police custody after her daughter has been handed over to Social Services, and her own social worker has informed her that nobody ever wanted to remove her daughter from her, and that the reason she spoke to Hassan Osman was about his own daughter's issues. Meanwhile, Julie reveals to the police that she is pregnant with Gavin's baby.
Awards
It won the "The Alfred Dunhill UK Film Talent Award" at the 20042004 in film
The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...
and its director won the BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
's "Carl Foreman Award
58th British Academy Film Awards
The 58th British Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts on 12 February 2005, honoured the best in film for 2004....
" for a debut by a British filmmaker, as well as being named The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
Breakthrough Artist Of The Year at the 2005
2005 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2005...
South Bank Show Awards. The film also picked up the Fipresci Prize for Best Film at the 2005
2005 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2005...
Miami International Film Festival
Miami International Film Festival
The Miami International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Miami, Florida in the late winter. The film festival is sponsored by the Miami Film Society, which has been around since 1983....
, and a special commendation Signis Award at the 2004
2004 in film
The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
San Sebastian International Film Festival
San Sebastián International Film Festival
The San Sebastián International Film Festival is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of San Sebastián .-History:The festival was founded in 1953...
.
External links
- Official site
- A Way Of Life at The British CouncilBritish CouncilThe British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
's British Films Website