MY NAME IS JOE (1998)
A Film Review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1999 Ted Prigge
Director: Kenneth Loach
Writer: Paul Laverty
Starring: Peter Mullan, Louise Goodall, David McKay, Anne-Marie Kennedy, David Hayman, Gary Lewis, Lorraine McIntosh
Lucky for us, "...and I'm and Alcoholic" didn't fit on the marquee, because then we may have been guaranteed another tiresome story of a man's struggle against his past cornball affliction, which it could have very well been. It also could have been yet another in a long line of UK social commentary, where the characters and everything else that possibly go into filmmaking take a distant backseat to sometimes sharp, sometimes unabashedly naive satire - basically one of my major pet peeves - but miraculously enough, social commenter Ken Loach opts to toss that in the backseat, and run away with everything else, including characterization and emotion. And thank god, because not only have we seen too much UK social commentary in the last decade to last us our entire lives, but we've not had many films that are this alive and this intelligently realistic. Love stories these days seem to follow a tiresome group of cliches, like the people in love are merely taking the appropriate steps, and trying to get from point to point without every just savoring moments like the ones here. And when "My Name is Joe" is lingering over shared moments between not only its two protagonists, but with others like a soccer team and other aquaintances of the leads, it's one of the best films of the year. It has such a natural energy to it that doesn't feel put-upon, and such a whimsical brand of charm and wit that even when it begins to look like it may fly into Mt. Cliche, it's easily forgivable because we're near sure that other great moments and scenes are going to come up and bring us back into the movie, and only a couple more times does the alcoholism and recovering from thereof come back into play, and only once in a cliched fashion (that's not a bottle in his hand, is it?!).
And without all the great stuff that Ken Loach and company bring to the film, it would have been yet another movie about a man's escape from his past, which it basically is, only here the emotions are felt and earned. Joe, the main character, is played by Peter Mullan as a energetic, un-bitter man who's had a rough life before the present, but is eager to make up for his past life and maybe even find happiness. Many of we yanks may actually recognize Mullan: he's starred in not only in Danny Boyle's "Shallow Grave" (as one of the doomed henchmen), but also in "Trainspotting" (as the bald, buff, drug dealer, Mother Superior), and here finally comes into light as a strong and wonderful actor (he's already won himself an award at Cannes, and rightfully so). He has a welcoming presence, kind of like a more appreciable Will Patton, with a deep tobacco voice and an instantly aimiable presence that makes his character effortlessly sympathetic. He wears a windbreaker and sneakers, and seems impatient and always on the move, despite the fact that he's currently jobless.
He's also the coach of a local soccer team, which he handles like a father fusses over kids, and one day when picking up one of his players, he runs into a social worker named Sarah (Louise Goodall), has a bit of a tiff with her, and runs into her later on. Pushy yet not creepily, he gives her his phone number, offering to do her wallpaper for some extra money, and is soon flirting with her and then going out on a date with her. They get alone greatly and quickly, because they've both in their own way been beat down and aren't expecting much, and are soon carrying on a relationship that makes the both of them extremely happy. These are the best parts of the film because, depsite a couple put-upon instances (she locks herself out of her house and has to stay at his house for the night...), they have a natural comedy and feel that never succumbs to cornball sentamentalism (even a scene where he tells her about why he has a Beethoven tape that opens up a deep wound feels completely and 100% real). The second half, which adds local drug dealing tension to the story, seems less real, though, and more like a need to fulfill the otherwise-goodguy-pulled-back-to-his-past formula. One of his soccer players, an otherwise superb chap named Liam (David McKay) finds he owes a good sum to a local mafiaso named McGowan (David Hayman), but can't pay it, even after his wife had tried to pay it off by dealing while he did a brief stint in jail (and ended up using a bunch of it). Feeling a father-like relationship with him, Joe goes to bat for him, and agrees to pick up two cars for McGowan filled with drugs, despite his wondering why Liam can't just do it.
Basically, it's a guess-what-happens-next rhetorical question here, but strangely enough, while the actual plot elements of Joe picking up drugs and trying to save Liam feel a touch on the fake side, the love story and the story of Joe never feel like they've been trifled with, and, in fact, they seem to only be accentuated and built upon because of them. This is because through everything, we understand Joe's character, and we can realize that despite doing otherwise stupid things, he's really trying to prove himself a good person all along, even if he can't correctly balance everything. And when the romance slowly becomes severed because of his involvement with McGowan, we feel that what's happening as a result is real, even if what has actually happened to cause the complications seem a bit fake. Even by the time he's resorted to the cliche of doing away with his alcohol aversion, we don't feel so much that a cliche has been touched upon, but that Joe himself as a character and as a person has been deeply woudned, perhaps without any hope. Frankly, despite the rampant use of cliches and contrivances, "My Name is Joe" posesses a really damn good story because it's told so well and in such an involving and unique manner.
And because Joe is seen as a good guy but with flaws (the occasional outburst of dramatics, the need to always do the right thing and be selfless, his desire to be happy, etc, etc), it's easier and much more comfortable to feel that Joe is a character worth caring about, and through most of it, he's not been destroyed by his past but by his own personality. He's not controlled by a plot, which is giving him a shit deal; he's giving himself a shit deal, and it's more justified for we the audience to care about what happens to him. A subject like this is many a time more interesting than a social commentary or another recovering alcoholic story, and it's told by Loach in such an idisoyncractic way, making due notice of the foibles and characteristics of its characters, that it's almost a shame that it does introduce the McGowan subplot at all. Loach has shot it using a dark, pale tone, accentuating the more dark aspects of the film's undertones (of a plagued society - thankfully, this is left as merely an undertone), but this is not a depressing movie - it's filled with life and the cinematography only gives it a deeper feeling of naturalism, despite the fact that the stateside print of this film has been given distracting (though helpful to some - not me, though) subtitles, perhaps a result of bitches about the regional accents in such UK films as "The Full Monty" and "The Butcher Boy," which start out I thought as a joke, but then continue on, like annoying closed-captioning.
And by the end, despite a rather sobering stream of tragic events, "My Name is Joe" is less of a social commentary or a traditional story of good guys with tragic lives and more of a celebration of life, since the best moments are the moments where the characters are just being, and these moments tend to overcome the otherwise traditional moments that populate a good deal of the second half. Even the ending, which could have otherwise been maudlin and generic, seemed like an emotionally devastating blow to the head without ever going too far, and without tending to stand out as bad moves in a film which is so filled with humor and wit (the comedy in this film, including stabs at a bagpipe player and the soccer team's uniforms, peeks its head up sporadically without feeling like it was tossed in there as a break). My only wish was that this film was more affecting, and took more advantage of the naturalism that it so wonderfully displays in the less didactic scenes, which are amongst the best of the year. For a film that steers so far away from sucumbing to becoming maudlin, it'd be nice if it just went - and excuse my clumsy allusion to a recent Disney movie here - the distance.
(And yes, that's Gary Lewis, of Gary Lewis and the Playboys, as Joe's chum, Shanks).
MY RATING (out of 4): ***1/2
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
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