Bread & Roses

For decades now, Ken Loach – undoubtedly one of the most prolific and important directors of all time – has been dismissed by mercenary critics as a miserabilist Marxist one-trick pony, his relentless highlighting of this divided world’s many injustices getting in the way of good old silver-screen escapism, and generally ‘spoiling the fun for everybody else’. Loach’s uncomplicated, no-frills directorial style has been repeatedly seized upon as evidence of a lack of imagination, while his unerring insistence on squeezing a clear socialist statement into all his films has led to accusations of didactic dogmatism.

This is the director’s first US-filmed outing to date, and though set and shot entirely in the belly of the beast, it’s hardly what you would call a sell-out. Serving up probably the least glamorous portrait of Los Angeles in living memory, Bread & Roses’ spartan but effective plot follows the (mis)fortunes of two Mexican sisters who illegally enter the States in search of a tolerable life, and soon find themselves (in relative terms) gainfully employed as slave-labour toilet-cleaners for Tinseltown corporations. The younger sister Maya, feisty and spirited, is the more outgoing and likeable of the pair, while her sister Rosa’s stern features and generally hatchet-like disposition betray the hassle and strife that define her very existence.

Most of the action unfolds from Maya’s viewpoint: she remains in good form despite the grinding and demeaning nature of her job, and when troublemaking lefty shit-stirrer Sam (Brody) starts frequenting the premises in secret, the prospect of romance raises its head. He co-ordinates a campaign named ‘Justice for Janitors’, and enlists Maya’s help in organising the downtrodden staff into a union, to Rosa’s absolute fury. This poses enormous risks for the workers, who face summary dismissal or even deportation if the bosses suspect anything’s going on. Still, the campaign that ensues is stirring and moving in the extreme.

As ever in Loach’s work, the romance offers respite rather than redemption, but it’s still sweeter than any amount of Affleck/Beckinsale hankie-wringing, with Brody and Padilla’s mischievous vitality almost generating enough uplifting devotion to make you forget about the vicious circle in which they were born and will die.

And in an age where culture-of-contentment Celtic Tigercubs can be spotted daily walking past people too cold, too hungry, too poor to live real lives -– and too proud to protest – it is wondrous indeed to stumble across the one film in a thousand which bothers to highlight reality as it’s lived at the sharp end.

Not Loach’s greatest film – arguably, not even one of his better ones – Bread And Roses still beats the living shit out of almost anything else to gain release this year.