Film

When the gray-haired lion of Britain’s left titles a movie It’s a Free World…, you can bet the irony meter is swinging into the red. Nothing is ever free in Ken Loach’s world (i.e., the real one), and his new ode to the economically impaired underlines how much open-market capitalism ends up costing our soul. Since we’re introduced to Angie (Wareing) as she’s getting the shaft from her corporate bosses, this working girl would appear to be the latest in a long line of Loach protagonists prepped to sing “The Internationale.” But the director and his screenwriter, Paul Laverty, have other things in store. A former employment recruiter, Angie starts up her own independent agency to provide cheap labor (read: illegal immigrants). Guess who goes from DIY entrepreneur to exploiter of the downtrodden in the blink of a mascaraed eye?

Loach dampens his default-mode didacticism significantly, which allows Wareing to craft a human being instead of a mouthpiece for one-sided arguments. The decision to weave in a romantic interest via a Polish worker (Zurek) and a sensationalistic turn involving Angie’s son, however, feel like cheap-seats dramatics. Free World doesn’t need to manufacture tension; its critique of corruption by association is compelling enough.