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"That's not what I do. That's what you call it, but it's not what I do."

Vera Drake emerged from Venice with the Golden Lion and a solid reputation as "Mike Leigh's abortion movie," but I think that's baggage Leigh doesn't want. His amazing new film certainly doesn't shy away from the issue, tackling it more directly than any mainstream film in memory, but it is first and foremost a character study, a tremendously moving portrait of a woman whose morality is so simple and pure that discovering a diametrically opposed point of view nearly destroys her. I don't know if Leigh is pro-choice or not -- I suspect he might be, but his film doesn't really make that case. Intensely personal, it's about less than abortion -- but it's about more, too, essentially arguing for relativism or, at least, trying to make a seemingly black-and-white issue as grey as possible.

Vera (Imelda Staunton) goes about her two lines of work -- cleaning houses for wealthy Londoners and helping girls deal with unwanted pregnancies -- with much the same studious, polite, motherly care. The first thing on her agenda when arriving at the home of one of her patients is to put the kettle on, and the parallel to her home life, where she fixes tea for her loving husband, loyal children, and occasionally a guest, is striking. Her duty to these girls and women, we feel, is little different from her duty to her family; "you have to help them, don't you," Vera ruminates when faced with an ostensibly irresponsible patient, and yes, she does have to. She gives no more thought to whether what she is doing may be "wrong" than she does to accepting money for her services.

The procedure itself is given weight without being sensationalized. Leigh never looks away, but he doesn't linger, either, treating the women with the same respect and compassion that Vera does. The technical details of the abortions are chilling, even frightening; more so, somehow, given the discreet, matter-of-fact way that Leigh presents them. The girls' inevitable incredulousness upon learning the next step ("Tomorrow, or the next day, you'll feel a pain down below. Get yourself to the toilet; you'll start bleeding, and it'll come away") perfectly stresses the moral ambiguity at play here -- "what do you mean it'll come away?" The gravity of what's happened doesn't hit them until it's over; we get the feeling that Vera has been trying her best to protect them from that realization.

The first half of the film juxtaposes this with a moving, detailed portrait of Vera's family -- her impeccably loyal war hero husband, her reserved, seemingly frightened daughter (what happened in her past to bring this about, we never learned), and her kindhearted, if volatile son. At one point, we cut from a painful abortion scene to a movie theater, where Vera and Stan are laughing at a riotous slapstick comedy, and we are reminded of the extent to which she sees what she does as a necessary part of her everyday life.

Had Vera been some kind of principled pro-choice crusader, she would probably have met her inevitable arrest with the poise of a martyr; at least, she would have seen it coming and accepted the risk. But in a heart-shattering, never-ending close-up as the police invade her kitchen, we see her entire world mercilessly demolished. She knew that what she was doing was illegal -- "I know why you're here" are the first words out of her mouth -- but she never even began to imagine that it could be "wrong;" she was helping, and that's all, an act perfectly natural, and good, and inarguable. The idea of being punished for it isn't just a rebuke but a crushing blow to everything she knows.

Leigh provides ample hints that disaster is coming but doesn't quite prepare us for its impact. The last act, which brings out the best and the worst of its many characters, and not always in the ways you might expect, reaches a remarkable level of emotional intensity as we begin to absorb precisely what is going on here. One of Leigh's smartest moves is refusing to demonize the authorities who take custody of the utterly broken Vera; the inspector on the case (Peter Wight) is compassionate even as he carries out his duties to the last, and even the characteristically stern judge (a bizarre cameo by Jim Broadbent) seems to get little satisfaction from pronouncing Vera's sentence. But they are guided by a moral and legal code that allows for no grey areas, punishing "offenders" and leaving everyone else in limbo. The ultimate effect of this approach is encapsulated in the amazing final shot.

The movie hinges on the performance of veteran British actress Imelda Staunton, and she raises the stakes in the year's Best Actress race, going from poised, humble dignity to a shattered shell of a woman in the span of one shot. It hinges, too, on the compassion of Mike Leigh, whose unique approach to this drama makes Vera Drake so much more than an "issue movie."