Another film in which Ken Loach brilliantly uses non-professional actors to portray poor working people in Britain.
Set on the Clyde estuary, it fortunately is subtitled for the first 15 minutes. Described as socialist-realist in reviews in the Guardian and Observer, it of coursenevertheless lacks all sense of proletarian heroism. The heroism is of the quiet endurance and dignity of people in setting in which they are bound to fail. As the Observer review says: "There is less direct confrontation with a larger society here than in most Loach movies - no indifferent bureaucrats, no mocking of the prison service, a single comic encounter with the police, the bourgeoisie seen only as clients of the smart health club. The movie centres on a divided working class exploiting one another, constantly engaging in physical and verbal abuse. There seems to be no way out of it, and hanging together as a family is shown to be an illusion. Yet one is reminded of a remark by Chekhov about his fellow writers that Graham Greene quoted with approval several times in his film criticism: 'The best of them are realistic and paint life as it is, but because every line is permeated, as with a juice, by an awareness of purpose, you feel, beside life as it is, also life as it ought to be, and this captivates you.'" Chris Burford London
