My Name Is Joe (1998)

Thanks for the memories!

Admirable film.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

When Joe tell her about alcoholic past Sarah says 'you've never forgiven yourself... I know that how its feel'' and we can not learn Sarah's story. Actually we do not know almost anything about Sarah but as if we know her. Ken Loach is Dickens in film space. I have to complete his all films and this five lines of review.

English television and film director Ken Loach's fourteenth feature film which was written by his long-time collaborator Paul Laverty, premiered In competition at the 51st Cannes International Film Festival in 1998, was screened in the Masters section at the 23rd Toronto International Film Festival in 1998, was shot on locations in Glasgow, Scotland and is a UK-France-Italy-Spain-Germany co-production which was produced by English producer Rebecca O'Brien. It tells the story about an unemployed recovering alcoholic named Joe Kavanagh who lives in an apartment in Glasgow. Joe spends most of his time with his friends from the soccer team he coaches, his friend named Shanks and is a regular attendant at anonymous alcoholics meetings. His recovering process is going well and one day when he is visiting his cousin named Liam and his pregnant girlfriend named Sabine, he encounters a woman named Sarah who works as a social visitor. Joe meets Sarah again and a connection emerges, but then Joe learns that Liam has gotten himself involved with a local criminal.Distinctly and engagingly directed by English filmmaker Ken Loach, this finely paced fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the main character's point of view, draws a humane, heartrending and gripping portrayal of a man who finds himself caught in a moral conflict whilst trying to come to terms with a past of violence and decay which has marred his character. While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, fine cinematography by English cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, production design by English production designer and art director Martin Johnson (1939-2003), authentic dialog and characteristic realism, this character-driven story from the late 1990s which is one of Ken Loach's most successful films and where a man is making an effort to maintain his first serious relationship with a woman whom is willing to look past the person he once was and accept him for the man he is becoming, depicts an in-depth and compassionate study of character and contains a timely score by English composer George Fenton.This at times very humorous and charming drama which is set in Scotland and where the protagonist considers it as his obligation to make a choice that could jeopardize both his ongoing recovery and his evolving and loving relationship, is impelled and reinforced by it's efficient narrative structure, substantial character development, the exceptionally moving and heartfelt acting performance by Scottish actor and director Peter Mullan and the fine supporting acting performances by Scottish actress Louise Goodall and Scottish actor David Hayman. An unsentimental, romantic and afflicting love-story which gained, among other awards, the award for Best Actor Peter Mullan at the 51th Cannes Film Festival in 1998, the Audience Award at the Valladolid International Film Festival in 1998, the British Independent Film Award for Best British Director of an Independent Film Ken Loach, Best Original Screenplay by a British Writer of a Produced Independent Film Paul Laverty and Best British Independent Film at the 1st British Independent Film Awards in 1998.

Joe (Peter Mullan) is a guy who has seen it all before. A former alcoholic, he kicked his habit. Now he is unemployed but is paradoxically very active since he trains a little football team and interests himself in young Liam who has a brush with the local underground for a story of unpaid drugs with his young spouse Sabine. He falls in love with Sarah, a social worker who brings them help and support. The two people fall in love whereas to help Liam, Joe is ready to break the law and to do shady jobs for the mobsters. Will his relationship with Sarah be affected by this?When he places his camera in the popular neighborhoods of a big city eaten away by unemployment, Ken Loach is the defender of the outcasts who are very strongly linked by friendship and mutual support, like Joe here with his tiny football team. Loach refuses to feel pity for them and shots the outset of his film with energy and generosity. Where he also grabs the audience and impresses her is his master at supple cinematographic writing. "My Name is Joe" starts up first time with a humorist perspective that the filmmaker will try to keep to the maximum. You have to see Joe and his sidekick who pretend to be professional house painters to Sarah's. Then, as Liam and Sabine's trouble grow and with Joe's decision to help them, the tone becomes darker, blacker and is here to remind us that we are in Loach's universe. His characters in spite of their big efforts are caught up in a sad fate. In the end, Loach runs the whole gamut of tones with ability in a quite gloomy plot.The arresting performance of Peter Mullan helps to make Loach's 1998 film more appealing and it's one to discover or rediscover.

There is something very brutally honest about the acting of Peter Mullan. There's a sort of untamed undertone of violence sizzling at his seams that burns through the characters he portrays. Mr. Mullan has the unique ability to seem very gentle, but on the edge of bursting at any moment. Match that with the directing ability of Ken Loach, and you've one very believable, intense film!