MY NAME IS JOE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Artisan Entertainment Director: Ken Loach Writer: Ken Loach Cast: Louise Goodall, Peter Mullan
There are probably those who will say that Ken Loach is a director more to be respected than enjoyed. It's not that we in the audience need to see Mary Poppins feel-good movies all the time to consider ourselves entertained. After all, the current film festival in Toronto featured a spate of hard-edged, cynical works about dysfunctional families including one which Universal refused to allow its subsidiary, October films, to release. But Loach's view of British working-class society is so bleak, with such unresolved conclusions, that we sometimes long for closure, for some tying up of the loose threads by the time we leave the theater.
"My Name is Joe" is an example of such a movie, one which will appeal mightily to the right audience because of the superior acting by its principal performer and its bitter bite of reality. What's more the story becomes increasingly involving and the romantic relationship it underscores is treated with such authenticity that it is far more believable than those invented by the Hollywood fantasy-factory. Loach remains so true to his portrayals of the lumpenproletarians of his country that once again--as in "Carla's Song"--the Scottish dialect is all but unintelligible (think "Trainspotting") to Americans. Happily, though, the situation is remedied by the use of subtitles.
The tale centers on Joe Kavanagh (Peter Mullan), a 37- year-old guy who is balding but manly and looks every bit the hale-fellow soccer coach that he portrays. With his fine appearance and compassion, he should not have had problems, but he is a recovering alcoholic who has been on the wagon for ten months and who is following the 12-step problem of Alcoholics Anonymous religiously. He has a keen interest in the young men he coaches, working-class fellows with a knack for getting into fights over nothing on the football field. [He will soon find himself in deep trouble for going to the defense of one foolhardy friend, Liam (Davie McKay).] His life changes dramatically when he falls in love with a pert, middle-aged health worker, Sarah Downie (Louise Goodall), a woman who doles out solid advice to poor women trying to care for their infants. Unattached herself, she is gradually drawn into Joe's orbit and seems relatively accepting when Joe remorsefully relates an incident that occurred during one of his drunken blackouts when he punched and kicked his girl friend. His relationship with Sarah comes to crucial point when he goes to the aid of Liam, who is heavily in debt to the local drug lord, McGowan (David Hayman) and who is trying to make a go of his marriage to his volatile, drug-addicted wife Sabine (Anne-Marie Kennedy).
Loach's current work, a sensitive, intimate portrayal of the difficulties faced by the lower working-class of Glasgow, highlights the self-defeating but good-hearted foolishness of its principal character. In a previous offering, "Carla's Song," bus driver George (Robert Carlyle) goes through with a quixotic scheme of running after the love of his life who has gone to Nicaragua to find her own boy friend. Similarly, while chasing after his romantic interest, Joe risks his very life and by doing so endangers his connection with a wonderful woman who could turn his days around.
The movie is not without humor, some verbal, as when Joe tells Sarah why he, a man with limited education, plays classical music at home--in his wilder days he stole boxes of cassettes and sold the country and western; he could not get rid of the Beethovens.
While the story begins with a loose texture to define the daily routine of these down-and-out Gaswegians--the long waits at the medical clinics, the refusal of doctors to grant prescriptions, the power of gangs over basically decent people--Loach tightens the narrative, building the tension to a catastrophic, climactic scene. This is obviously the work of a man whom the BBC at one time refused to produce: his "Cathy Comes Home" was apparently too raw a slice of London life for its listeners. Unlike "Carla's Song," none of the dialogue comes across as improvised and though Loach's left-leaning politics is implied it is not as obvious as it was in that Nicaragua-based romance. Even if bleak dramas of this sort are not your cup of tea, you'll have to admire Peter Mullan's first-rate acting, a performance which gained him the Best Actor award at the last Cannes festival. His is the sort of accomplishment that could not be duplicated by one suited to more commercial dramas, such as Malcolm McDowell and Terence Stamp, who were, in fact, responsible for the failure of the director's "Poor Cow."
Rated R. Running time: 105 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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