‘Life Is Sweet’

Director Mike Leigh leaves you speechless with this eccentric 1991 film that is at once surreal and very real, a film in which nothing happens and everything is experienced. Leigh concentrates on a working-class family living in a north London suburb: Wendy (Alison Steadman), her husband Andy (Jim Broadbent) and their twin teen-age daughters Natalie (Claire Skinner) and Nicola (Jane Horrocks, pictured, with Timothy Spall). It’s Nicola, all wire-rimmed glasses and attitude, given to hostile manifestoes on the order of “all men are potential rapists,” who drives her family crazy. After the laughter comes anger, sadness and pain (Bravo Saturday at 7:30 p.m.).