Cast: Kierston Wareing, Juliet Ellis, Leslaw Zurek
Loach’s latest tackles the question of immigration from an unexpected angle. This is the story of Angie (Wareing), a single mother who is unjustly sacked and decides to set up her own business with her flatmate, Rose (Ellis). Their plan is to supply cheap Eastern European labour to a greedy UK market.It’s a fairly standard first and second act, as Angie and Rose face the difficulties of starting something fresh in a cutthroat, masculine world. Added to this is the pressure on Angie to look after her son properly, and her attraction to Karol (Zurek), a Polish man trying to make his way in the UK.
Mistreated by her boss, put down by her mother, and abandoned by the father of her child, Angie is naturally the object of our sympathy. Newcomer Wareing is brilliant in her simple and endearing portrayal. As the business starts to succeed, we’re completely in her corner. Everything is in place for Loach to establish an uncharacteristically heart-warming portrait of someone doing the right thing by immigrants who are widely treated as scum.
In the third act, however, Loach shows himself true to form, allowing free reign to human depravity. Therefore we end up with something far more realistic and ultimately more satisfying than the likes of Brassed Off or The Full Monty.
A scathing indictment of contemporary Britain (and Europe more broadly), this is the perfect realist tonic against the feel-good froth that chokes so much our cinema.
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