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The Raggedy Rawney (1987)
Director: Bob Hoskins
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Hoskins' first outing as a director, a World War I tale of Romany Folk, is set somewhere unspecific in the East European theatre. Fletcher plays a drafted boy soldier who escapes the carnage by donning woman's clothing and taking to the countryside. Port in a storm is provided by a passing band of gypsies, led by the ever-the-cockney Hoskins, who mistake Fletcher for a rawney -- a traveller's word meaning a kind of vagabond female fortune-teller - and take him/her into their company. From here on in, Hoskins' darkening tale focuses on the lives of this less than merry band, with various set pieces - a traditional wedding, a ritual burial - strung together by a meandering plot concerning the group's various sexual and social rivalries and problems. The film suffers from disconcerting shifts of tone, mood, and focus, and threatens to become a case of paving over with good intentions; but its themes - the warts-and-all humanity of the travellers culture, the all pervasive destructiveness of war, the survival instinct - are delivered with sufficient sympathy and commitment to overcome the doubts.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Bob Hoskins
Producer: Bob Weis
Cast: Bob Hoskins, Dexter Fletcher, Zoe Nathenson, Zoe Wanamaker, Dave Hill, Ian Dury, Ian McNeice, Veronica Clifford full cast
Duration: 103 mins
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