"Wife. Mother. Criminal(?)": Representations of Abortion in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake (2004)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.20099663Keywords:
Abortion, British film, Crime, Harm, Vera DrakeAbstract
Set in the early 1950s in a working-class area in London, Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake (2004) revolves around the life of the protagonist Vera and the discovery of her best-kept secret: her role as a backstreet abortionist. This article examines how the issue of abortion is approached in the film and how long-standing links between abortion, crime and evil are partly deconstructed, mainly through the use of different narrative strategies. As I shall argue, the partial ‘decriminalisation’ of abortion in the film stems mainly from the film’s particular treatment of time and characterisation of Vera, its salient emphasis on Vera’s abortion method, and on the prominence given to Susan Wells’ abortion case. As I will discuss, ultimately, what the film seems to criticise is the social and juridical criminalisation of an individual (Vera Drake), suggesting instead that a “social harm theory” rather than a “crime theory” could explain the problems surrounding abortion in the context of Vera Drake.
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