It's a Free World...
Battered by her own work experience, Angie (Kierston Wareing), a recruitment agency worker who works for an agency that brings workers from Poland to the United Kingdom, persuades her flat-mate and longtime friend Rose (Juliet Ellis) to take a huge leap into the void and start their own recruiting agency. They buy a computer, create a website and, with Rose working out of their "office," Angie sets out every day on the company's new motorbike to build a clientele. Before long, they have a comfortable little business going.
But Rosie's determination to make a success of her company soon overshadows any good intentions she had towards her immigrant workers, and she starts to treat them with the same disrespect and abuse that her former employers treated her.
Member Reviews
A Free But Cruel World ... - CharleyJames
This being a Ken Loach film, it’s a free but cruel world populated by tools, fools, schemers and dreamers. It’s the war of all against all with fistfuls of pound notes and mouths crammed with speeches and broken promises.
It doesn’t take long to figure out that Angie, a pretty, young Londoner who’s trying to keep it together mainly by exploiting other people, is a lieutenant in the war. The story traces her progression from amorality to immorality, from exploited to exploiter, as she goes from working in a recruitment agency to running her own shop. With her friend Rose, she finds foreign workers for employers seeking maximum profits and minimum payouts. While not unkind, she’s driven by greed.
This is common ground for Loach. The problem is he has a regrettable habit of speaking for their characters rather than through them. This doesn’t mean that the film lacks appeal. Angie keeps you closely watching and listening. It’s a difficult performance to pull off precisely because Loach won’t let her off the hook, no matter how rough her personal times. Angie’s energy brings you into the character even as her increasingly desperate, increasingly despicable actions push you away.
There’s not much else he does say, which leaves a strange hole in the film. It begins and ends with exploitation but it doesn’t give anything else in between. No solutions, no hope, no exit. The world turns. Money circulates. People work. Loach presents the wretched and well off speaking in foreign and forked tongues, inhabiting grubby campers and handsome flats, dying slowly on factory floors and living large in well-lighted rooms.
If you didn’t know better and didn’t know Loach’s politics, you might think there’s nothing to be done which makes you wonder why bother to do anything – including watching this film.Good Effort and Unique - MikeB
It’s not often one sees a film on migrant workers in England from Eastern Europe. These workers are exploited as in underpaid or not paid. The film has a gritty and convincing performance from the lead actress (Kierston Wareing).
However there is a lack of logic and continuity in the movie. There are too many sub-plots that go nowhere and are distractive. She has an on and off again romance with a Polish worker which does not really add anything to the plot. She helps a family from Iran for a day and they conveniently disappear. The scenes with her son – who is being cared for by her parents – are more tangible.
At the end of the movie she is physically assaulted by workers who are demanding to be paid. They take her money and threaten to kidnap her son. The very next scene abruptly takes us to the Ukraine where she is continuing to recruit. Then the movie ends!!Super Downer - DrifterMcGrifter
Wow, this movie sure was depressing! It's basically the story of a very selfish and jaded person dragging others down. The lead character Angie jumps into a seedy industry and though she pays some lip service to morality now and then, she mostly just trounces over anyone she has to, and ends up getting beat at her own game. Very few redeeming qualities for this character who is on the screen about 95% of the film.
The film is not without merit however. The acting is strong from the entire cast, and I did feel pulled into the plot. Interesting does not mean good however, and I would have a hard time recommending this to anyone.
If you like watching terrible people self-destruct, you might enjoy this film. Everyone else should skip it.
Member Reviews
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A Free But Cruel World ... - CharleyJames
This being a Ken Loach film, it’s a free but cruel world populated by tools, fools, schemers and dreamers. It’s the war of all against all with fistfuls of pound notes and mouths crammed with speeches and broken promises.
It doesn’t take long to figure ...Good Effort and Unique - MikeB
It’s not often one sees a film on migrant workers in England from Eastern Europe. These workers are exploited as in underpaid or not paid. The film has a gritty and convincing performance from the lead actress (Kierston Wareing).
However there is a ...Super Downer - DrifterMcGrifter
Wow, this movie sure was depressing! It's basically the story of a very selfish and jaded person dragging others down. The lead character Angie jumps into a seedy industry and though she pays some lip service to morality now and then, she mostly just trounces ...