‘Tender Loving Care’ Trailer: Mike Leigh’s Latest Is A Meditation On Love & Growing Old

The first trailer for what might be Mike Leigh‘s last film, Tender Loving Care, was released this morning. The story follows Amy (Kate O’Flynn) who, after a bitter breakup, moves in with her best friend Rosie (Alice Bailey Johnson). Both work in London, in social care, at opposite ends of the age spectrum, where Amy specializes in young people. Rosie becomes like a second daughter to Amy’s parents, notably her elderly father, who is starting to show his age. Last month, the picture won the San Sebastián Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Shell, alongside the award for Best Screenplay. In his review, our Pete Hammond called Tender Loving Care “Mike Leigh at his most humane and heartwarming.” Leigh himself describes the film thusly: “Tender Loving Care is a film about care and loving. And it’s really about people who care for other people professionally, and people who care for the nearest and dearest. It’s about the pending end of life. Growing old. It’s about hanging onto youth. And overall, it’s a film, I think one could say, about love, really. Love in the sense of lovingness.” Bleecker Street will open the film in theaters in Los Angeles and New York on Friday, December 11.