In 1930s Ireland, political activist Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward) faces deportation for running a community hall for the arts, enabling the villagers to gather to sing, dance, paint, study or box, which led to his deportation.
Even an ultimately forgettable effort from this esteemed social-realist director can't help but achieve eloquence in its affirmation of basic human decency.
A handsomely mounted, yet modest and precise piece of work that unearths a little-known true story of injustice and reminds us all of how the present is always in the shadow of the past.
Loach is clearly on Gralton's side, but he's remarkably evenhanded about it. Norton is a formidable villain, while Ward is just vulnerable enough to make the showdown dramatically persuasive.
Barry Ward's handsome, charismatic hero is a romanticised figure (in reality Gralton was middle-aged and balding), which wouldn't matter if his character had been given more depth and shade.
While this deeply romanticized and fictionalized account of a little-known underdog might not serve you in any trivia capacities, it's also a worthy and loving story of humanity in the face of oppression.
This 1930s-set drama chronicling events leading to the deportation of a little-known, real-life Irish political activist is a graceful digest of Loach's signature motifs.
Working from a fact-based screenplay by his longtime collaborator Paul Laverty, Loach addresses a theme that resonates throughout his work: the effect of the political on the personal.
