5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Peter Mullan's Riveting portrayal of addiction in Bitter, Bonnie Scotland,, October 4, 2007
This review is from: My Name Is Joe (1998. Peter Mullan, Louise Goodall, Anne-Marie Kennedy) (DVD)
This is a rough film...no sugar coating...gritty and as real as they come!.
Peter Mullan delivers a most riveting performance as Joe Kavanagh, a man ten months sober in AA, struggling in the welfare district of Glasgow, Scotland to survive and turn his life around. He coaches a welfare soccer team, goes to his 12-step meetings and does painting jobs on the sly in order to make ends meet. Life really takes a turn for the best when he meets social worker Sarah Downie (Louise Goodall).Their relationship is sweet and quite charming. How nice it would have been if the McGowen Boys did not rule the town and the drug trade.Joe is forced to make decisions that threaten his sobriety and his relationship with Sarah as he tries to protect his best friends from falling deeper into the world of addiction.No small wonder that Mullan took home the best actor award at Cannes in 1999 for this role. This is acting at it's most primal!
Director Ken Loach always takes on the grim realities of life in his films, and MY NAME IS JOE is not for the faint at heart.Loach exposes Scotland in it's poverty, crime and underworld drug trade through the eyes of a man who is in much need of his own recovery. Loach examines the difficulties that confront those trying to heal from substance abuse in a place where temptation and thugs exist around every corner to thwart the addict's recovery.Loach has one very interesting scene where tourists are seen taking their pictures with a bagpiper who " only knows three songs." Joe remarks "Ah, good ol' Bonnie Scotland!" showing the stark contrast in which outsiders see Scotland as opposed to the problems that it really has.
This film is RAW and has extremely coarse language throughout.There is a lot of explosive emotion.This film, though ,is not without it's very tender side. Definitely adult content, MY NAME IS JOE is excellent for understanding the ups and downs of addiction and highlights absolutely some of the finest acting that you will ever see. In English, with subtitles provided in order to maneuver the thick Scottish accents!
A good companion film would be CLEAN AND SOBER , 28 DAYS (Sandra Bullock Version), and MARIA FULL OF GRACE.
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