Beloved British auteur Mike Leigh has explained to the San Sebastian Film Festival why it’s “more than probable” his latest drama-comedy, Tender Loving Care, will be his last.
The filmmaker appeared via video link at a press conference for the competition title, alongside producer Georgina Lowe and cast members Alice Bailey Johnson, Paul Jesson and Marion Bailey, who is the mother of Bailey Johnson and Leigh’s real-life partner. Their co-star Kate O’Flynn, who just won an Emmy for her scene-stealing performance in Widow’s Bay, was unable to travel to the film festival in northern Spain.
“It’s quite straightforward,” said Leigh when asked whether Tender Loving Care will indeed be his last film. “I have a medical condition [myositis], which affects my muscular movement, and it’s quite difficult to move around. [It’s] certainly more difficult than it should be for a filmmaker, and therefore it’s more than probable that this film will have to be my last film. That’s all,” he explained. “It’s a practical matter to do with my medical condition — a physical condition.”
Leigh has touched on struggling with the condition — a disease affecting the immune system — a few times this year, as Tender Loving Care made its debut at Telluride, TIFF and now San Sebastian. If it is to be his last, The Hollywood Reporter called it “a lovely addition and likely conclusion to an exceptional career,” as Leigh, who was here in San Sebastian just two years ago with Hard Truths, once again shows his knack for gently gut-wrenching storytelling.
In the film, O’Flynn plays a social worker, Amy, who moves in with her university pal (and fellow social worker), Rosie (Bailey Johnson). Amy is particularly close with her parents (Jesson and Bailey), who live nearby and are muddling through on lots of cups of tea. When a family health crisis strikes the characters later in the film, Leigh deftly tells us that much of British stoicism is actually courage, solidarity, and unspoken fear in the face of adversity.
“Humanity is humanity,” said Leigh to the room of journalists about “reflecting positivity” and resilience amid “tough times.” He continued: “We haven’t stopped being human. The quality of life hasn’t gone away just because we’re in tough times — on the contrary, all the more reason to reflect positivity the way we can. Obviously, I hope that Tender Loving Care wouldn’t be misunderstood as a piece of romantic escapism because it isn’t. It’s a hard look at realities, but it is about compassion, and compassion is as important in these times as many other times.”
With the film’s confrontation of post-War decline in Britain, as well as debilitating cuts to health and social care services, the director and his cast were asked about staying optimistic in the current climate, where, as Jesson eloquently put it, “people with lots of money […] run their countries brutally.”
Leigh replied: “It’s a question with no black and white answer. One wants to be optimistic. One wants to see light at the end of the tunnel. I have children and grandchildren, and my youngest grandchild is actually two years of age. If everything goes as it should, he will be my age in the 22nd century, and I want that world to be a good world. I want his life to be positive,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s not difficult to be pessimistic because, as has already been referred to, so many things are happening in the world which are frightening and limiting. And really, that’s all I can say.”
Bailey jumped in, explaining that she grew up in an age where she and her peers believed they were changing the world. She added: “I would say we have a moral obligation to try to be optimistic, but it’s very hard. But unless we are optimistic, we fail. And I’ll just point out, Alice is actually my daughter in real life,” she said, smiling. “So, of course I am concerned. I’d be concerned in any case about the future. I’m of the same generation as [her character] Birdie, and certainly when we were in our 20s, we thought we were going to change everything. We thought it was going to get better — that we were breaking down all sorts of horrible taboos and repressions that were around after the war, and that working people would have a better life. I would have been astonished to have known then what I see happening now.”
In a lighter moment, Leigh was asked about the abundance of wine drank in the film — O’Flynn and Bailey Johnson’s characters have a few bottle-induced dance parties — to which he responded: “Drinking is part of our culture — certainly in the West or indeed in many cultures. As far as I’m concerned, it’s about making films about how we live at all kinds of levels in real life. Part of that is that people drink, so there’s a sort of symbolism in it. […] It’s not a comment about the pros or cons of drinking. It’s just the fact that it is part of the texture and fiber of everyday life.”
Jesson added: “There is also a lot of tea [in the film]. I don’t think you should run away with the idea that most Brits are drunkards.”
The 2026 San Sebastian International Film Festival runs Sep. 18-26.
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