My Name Is Joe

Ken Loach, Britain's last crusading leftist film director, returns to his particular brand of social realism with this tale of a recovering alcoholic and general do-gooder whose best intentions jeopardize his opportunity to find love with a social worker. Joe (Peter Mullan, who won the Best Actor prize at Cannes) hit bottom long ago and has spent the better part of a decade crawling back up. He's on the dole, lives in a decrepit Glasgow neighborhood dominated by crumbling concrete public housing, and passes the time coaching a group of raucous youths in their weekly football matches. It's a bleak world, and Loach never hesitates to turn the bleak Glaswegian light o...