Streetlife

Tough, uncompromising and very bleak story of a woman on a Caerphilly housing estate, so unlucky in life and love that she ends up killing her baby, born in secret and alone in her mother's caravan, and then sending it down a rural stream like Moses in his basket. This is a telling indictment of the '90s 'dustbin' society in which dysfunctional people seem abandoned and prey to council worker and drug dealer alike. Clumsy in parts and laid on a mite too thick, the film is nevertheless a cry of anguish that Ken Loach would have recognised. McCrory gives a vibrant performance in her first big film role.