Best friends and fellow social workers Amy (Kate O’Flynn) and Rosie (Alice Bailey Johnson) work amidst public crises and a lack of institutional support. Alienated from her own family, Rosie is something like a stepdaughter to Amy’s parents, Birdie (Marion Bailey) and Geoff (Paul Jesson), who round out the foursome at the heart of Tender Loving Care. Surrounded by a rich periphery of lives and struggles, Amy and Rosie approach the dangerous, difficult work of caring for the dispossessed with all the strength they have.
As usual, writer-director Mike Leigh doesn’t plot an arc so much as he constructs lively, provocative vignettes. Some of them are funny, some tragic, and many balance the two. Every performance in the film is superb and infused with the realism Leigh is famous for. Compassionate, keenly perceptive, and graced with a hard-won wisdom, this is a film about struggle and perseverance.
Mike Leigh
Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Kate O’Flynn, Alice Bailey Johnson
UK
2026
English
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Credits
Executive Producer
Gail Egan, Mark Gooder, Alison Thompson, Miranda King, Tyler DiNapoli, Kent Sanderson, Michéle Marshal, Naomi Despres, Farhana Bhula, Jonathan Weiner, Meredith Crowley, Kerstin Emhoff, Dan Janvey, Jennifer Eriksson, Richard Kondal
Producer
Georgina Lowe
Screenwriter
Mike Leigh
Cinematography
Lucy Bristow
Editor
Tania Reddin
Production Design
Jane Brodie
Original Music
Gary Yershon
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