‘The Angels’ Share’ is the new film from director, Ken Loach. Known for his realistic style, Loach doesn’t differ from that path here and as a result brings us a sweet, gritty, funny and life-affirming film.
Loach assembles a group of largely unknown actors to play a bunch of criminals all brought together by their sentencing of community service, or ‘payback’ as it’s apparently called by our Scottish cousins. Every day’s a school day, eh! The protagonist, new dad Robbie wants to raise his son with partner, Leoni but finds it difficult to catch a break and escape ‘friends’ who want to drag him down. The group bond and work well so as a reward, the supervisor Harry takes them to a distillery. Robbie displays an aptitude for whiskey tasting and attracts the interest of a collector who hands Robbie his business card. At the tasting, Robbie spots a way to provide for his family and out of his current situation. Before he escapes though, he remembers those who helped him and leaves behind a very special gift for Harry. A bottle of Irn-Bru…or is it?
In his latest effort, Loach delivers the kind of film we’ve come to expect from him. Sort of. It deals in ‘real’ issues and ‘real’ people. Set against a backdrop of the poorer areas of Glasgow with characters who never dare to even dream that their lives could improve, we are left in no doubt of Loach’s political stance. Some viewers may feel that Robbie’s path out of Glasgow is all a wee bit too easy and I’d agree. The tone of the film swaps from gritty realism to unrealistic knockabout comedy. It still works better than a lot of films we see of its kind, I would have just liked Robbie to have found it a bit more difficult than he did.
A great film about triumph over adversity. Some may feel there’s not enough adversity before the triumph.
