
Life Is Sweet
Mike Leigh’s 1990 domestic tragi-comedy follows a North London family over a summer: chef Andy buys a broken fast-food van; his wife Wendy holds things together; their daughters Natalie and Nicola navigate adulthood in opposite directions; and their friend Aubrey opens a doomed Parisian restaurant. Shot on location in Enfield with a cast developed through improvisation, it treats working-class life with unsentimental warmth, finding emotional weight in small gestures, quiet failures, and unspoken care.


