Betty's Brood

Though certainly a little rough-and-ready (particularly in the editing), this very low-budget feature, made for just £2000 by the Gorbals Unemployed Workers' Centre, gets by on an intelligent script and naturalistic performances of great conviction from an almost entirely non-professional cast. A look at life in contemporary Britain, as evidenced by the Gorbals, it tells of one family's attempts to deal with death, drug addiction, disease and the threat of dissolution. Very much in the Loach/Amber mould, but none the worse for that.