British director Ken Loach is well known as an uncompromising champion of working class rights, ever ready to celebrate the vitality and spirit of the most disadvantaged in society, whilst challenging and questioning the system that keeps them there. His latest film "My Name Is Joe" is a love story with a difference - no beautiful people a la Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, and no fairy tale endings.
Peter Mullan won the best actor award at Cannes for his performance as Joe, and in Australia the film won the audience prize at the recent Sydney Film Festival and was awarded the "Mall d'or" at the Brisbane Film Festival - a special one-off prize voted by the Queen Street Mall construction workers.
Joe is on the dole, a reformed alcoholic in his late 30s, wary of falling off the wagon. He is the glue that holds together The Wanderers, a rag tag team of footballers from his housing estate. The weekly match brings a little order and a lot of fun and companionship into their lives, even if they are one of the worst teams you've even seen.
Enter Sarah (Louise Goodall) a community health worker. An independent and self-sufficient woman she struggles to make life a little easier for the families under her care. Sarah inadvertently trips Joe up by dropping rolls of wallpaper at his feet. He and his mate Shanks (Gary Lewis) have never hung wallpaper in their lives, but this doesn't deter them from offering their "expert" services - the prospect of a little extra money and something to do is irresistible. They do however balk at papering the ceiling - watch out for the delightful scene where they try to justify themselves!
Joe is sprung by the ever watchful social security and, without his knowledge, Sarah vouches for him. Thus starts an unlikely love affair between two very different people - Joe who is desperate to make up for his lost years and Sarah who is fearful of Joe's desire for connection, and of his past.
Loach handles the film with great delicacy. There are laughs a plenty, but the harsh reality of the urban poor in modern day Glasgow is ever present. The characters are painfully real and utterly believable, struggling to make their way in a world bedeviled by drugs, prostitution and violence. The performances are wonderful and, as so often in Loach films, many of them are non-professional actors. Annemarie Kennedy who plays Sabine continued working as a part-time cleaner in a school throughout the shoot and apparently the police looked did a double take when the saw some of the members of the cast - they already knew most of them.
The filmmakers decided that subtitles were needed given the undiluted Glaswegian accents. I actively avoided them, focusing instead on the actors. "My Name Is Joe" is full of energy and humour, love and hope - a celebration of the human spirit determined to overcome all odds. The film offers no easy answers - What would you do in Joe's place?
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Director: Ken Loach (