Mike Leigh's 1996 Palme d'Or grabbing venture is beyond everything else a comedy; one that succeeds because it doesn't try shamelessly hard to raise laughs.

In the film, young Hortense (Marianne Jean Baptiste), after the death of her foster mother, decides to track down and meet her 'real' mom, Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), who had given her up for adoption after birth. Hortense is an optometrist, a intelligent, successful career woman...and black. It is therefore to her considerable surprise she discovers that her real mother is a white woman. In other ways too, Cynthia is the diametric opposite of Hortense: Council house poor, dull-witted, slovenly and prone to hysteria. Still unmarried, Cynthia stays with a sullen blue-collar job (white) daughter Roxanne (Phyllis Logan), depending on occasional cash gifts from Maurice (Timothy Spall), her well-settled photographer brother.

After initially rebuffing Hortense's attempts to get in touch, Cynthia gives in, and a warm relationship builds between the 2 women, which brings a significant change over Cynthia and her equations with her other family. Things come to a head when Cynthia decides to invite Hortense for Roxanne's 21^st birthday party, being celebrated at Maurice's house.

I can imagine a certain section of readers here groaning at the prospect of another chick-flick, but Leigh's story is interesting regardless of gender, and while this is no Simpsons episode with a naked screaming Homer, there are still tons of genuinely humorous moments. Roxanne giving Cynthia a furious, withering look as she clumsily tries to tell her daughter about birth control is a hoot. Even the more serious “drama moments” have their sense of bittersweet irony.

Apparently Leigh's way of making a film involves talking with the actors and allowing them to improvise to their heart's content, but not actually telling them the overall plot. So many of the plot twists were surprises to the actors themselves. Although I can't comment on how different the situation would have been with a bound script the ploy seems to have worked well for S&L: The improvised dialog is engaging and we see a strong immersion of the actors in their roles. The contrast between Hortense's and Cythnia's worlds is handled with warmth and a low-key flair that evokes subtle humor even as it avoids the stereotype. Although this is a women-dominated film, Timothy Spall as Maurice more than holds his own, giving genuine feeling and dimension to a part that in lesser hands could have been easily relegated to caricature. Check him in the scene where he responds with quiet but firm dignity to an old acquaintance that accuses him of riding on the tails of his success.

The happy ending comes a little pat with its “all we need is a little sharing and caring” message, but that's alright, because we empathize with these characters for what they are and do not grudge them a break. Like the really good kind of chocolate, S&L is in parts bitter and sweet, and all delicious.