Ignasi Miró-Sastre
Ken Loach is one of Britain's most prolific directors nowadays. His movies and his personal style have also gathered a faithful group of fans and followers (and many awards, as well). He takes on many subjects that would otherwise have a hard time finding their way to the big screen, such as the Irish revolution or the actual state of unemployment and abuse of immigrants, which is the theme of 'It's a free world....' The script, written by Loach's regular screenwriter Paul Laverty, is really sober. There is not much in the sense of artificiality, with dialogue that seems real and fitting to the characters and setting. Perhaps too much. Their mumbling is quite hard to follow, and abundant, and most of the action on the screen feels a lot like a filling. This can be blamed on Loach's approach on directing, following his usual style of being just an observer. Although it's a commendable approach, it can also lead to make the movie quite boring and messy, which is the case with 'It's a Free World....' Most of the time, the movie just feels interested on showing how miserable are everyone's lives, which is guess is fitting to the context of the film, but it is a bit too much. The supposed-to-be humorous breaks, to make the movie easier to swallow are quite obtuse and scarce, leaving us with plain drama. And that is my main grumble about the movie: it feels so obsessed to show how miserable everything is that most of the times it just forgets that it is a movie. At the end I just wanted it to finish, as I was not only bored, but annoyed with how obvious and manipulative the movie turned out to be. The acting, as usual with Ken's movies, is filled with fresh faces. Most of the actors are newcomers, and that actually helps immersing the spectator in the movie, for good or bad. Their gibberish is so hard to follow that you might actually need the help of subtitles in order to know what is going on in most scenes. From the ensemble, Kierston Wareing stands out as the lead character, giving a much-needed stream of energy to the film. The rest, however, feel amateurish, which can be a good or a bad thing, considering the documental-like approach of Loach. 'It's a Free World...' sure isn't a movie for everyone. It is, like every Ken Loach film, a film striving for showing a reality, to criticize a wrong, and somehow, be food for thought. Sadly, that seems to be the one and only motivation behind this movie, it being absolutely oblivious that, after all, it is a film. That is a common problem, for me, with English social dramas: the obsession of showing how miserable life is, and nothing else. At the end, I was absolutely bored and pleading for it to end, instead of being shocked and disgusted to the reality 'It's a Free World...' tried so hard to criticize. I would still recommend it to those interested in the problems of immigration and work nowadays, but warning them that, as a film, it does not deliver at all.
stensson
There's a new exploited class in the Western world. The illegal immigrants. Since they've got no papers, they will take any work, any wage, any risks. And there are people who are just too eager to help them.The main person here is fired from a recruiting agency. She starts her own and also starts to exploit people like she's been exploited. The free world means almost slavery, since people without papers have no rights. But those who provide companies with such labour force can easily become the victims in this perverted order.Another Ken Loach movie which put the unpleasant questions. And gives the unpleasant answers.