Indisputable Golden Shell to Mike Leigh for the extraordinary 'Tender loving care'

Special envoy to San SebastianIt was the only possible Golden Shell. Tender loving care, which will surely be the last work of the British filmmaker Mike Leigh, has won the award for best film at the San Sebastian Festival. It is a recognition that should not be interpreted only as a tribute to a great director in his farewell to cinema due to health problems –he suffers from myositis, which weakens the musculature and hinders movement– that have prevented him from collecting the award in person. On the contrary, this minimalist film about two social workers and the parents of one of them is extraordinary and deeply humanistic, one of the best works by an author who is a champion of cinematic realism and who, for more than five decades, has dedicated himself to portraying life in all its painful complexity and beauty.

To underline the impact of the triumph of Tender loving care, the jury presided over by Ira Sachs awarded it two more prizes from the official list: best screenplay and best actress for Kate O’Flynn, a regular in Leigh’s troupe since Happy (2008) who has just won an Emmy for the series The Curse of Widow’s Bay. The screenplay award has a special significance because the scripts for Leigh’s films take shape through rehearsals and work with the actors; therefore, it can be interpreted as a recognition of the British director’s particular method, or simply as a celebration of the message of this anthem to friendship and to taking care of one another in a world where, unfortunately, love is not always enough.

The Golden Shell for Tender loving care is not just an act of justice for Leigh, who had not triumphed at a major festival since the Golden Lion for Vera Drake (2004) –he already had the Palme d’Or for Secrets & Lies (1996)–, but also a success for San Sebastian, where it had been many years since a renowned international director had won and from where works as incontestable as Still Walking by Hirokazu Kore-eda or The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Davies left without any awards. Furthermore, after three editions with a Spanish Golden Shell, awarding Leigh allows San Sebastian to remember that it is an international festival, and not the premium version of Malaga. In fact, Spanish cinema barely appears on the winners' list: only Javier Cámara saves the honor with the best supporting actor award for 5 More Minutes, by Javier Ruiz Caldera, the best Spanish film in competition.

With the awards for best cinematography and best actress (ex aequo with O’Flynn), the second big winner of the list is the Norwegian drama Growth of the Soil, where Hans Petter Moland adapts Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun, about the construction of a family and a home in a remote Norwegian region. The jury also recognized the expressive restraint of Amanda Kernell, Silver Shell for best director for Brace Your Heart, a melodrama set in the Sami herder community in the north of Lapland. And the quota of radicalism went to the Chinese film Border, special jury prize for the most arid and demanding film in the competition. At the other extreme, San Sebastian has confirmed the public’s love for The Black Ball: the Javis' film, which did not participate in the official competition, took home the popular vote award.