Kate O'Flynn is an overworked, underfunded employee in Mike Leigh's Tender Loving Care trailer

The film will most likely be the last from the director of Secrets And Lies and Hard Truths.

Kate O'Flynn is an overworked, underfunded employee in Mike Leigh's Tender Loving Care trailer

After winning an Emmy for her work in a New England-based series, Kate O’Flynn is back to regular ol’ England with Tender Loving Care, the next—and likely last—film from director Mike Leigh. Bleecker Street shared a first trailer for the film ahead of its U.S. release next month, and fans of Leigh’s work will see the director’s trademark simple yet funny and effective dialogue and non-flashy camera work. Here, O’Flynn plays Amy, an employee of child welfare services and, like her character in Widow’s Bay, it seems she could use a few more resources. (Though, needless to say, working in child welfare is a far more important job than the assistant to a mayor trying to lure people to a probably-haunted island.) Alice Bailey Johnson co-stars as Amy’s friend Rosie, another social services employee. 

A.V. Club film critic Monica Castillo was a fan of Tender Loving Care when it screened earlier this year at the Toronto International Film Festival. “Finding incredible actors and giving them the material and space to feel through every conflicted note, to stifle the sobs of fully living in the role, has been one of Leigh’s hallmarks throughout his career,” she writes in her review. “If Tender Loving Care does end up as Leigh’s swan song, it’s a perfectly heartfelt note to end on, right up to its final stirring close-up.” Tender Loving Care is scheduled for a United States release on December 4. 

 
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