Slideshow
MY NAME IS JOE
U.K., 1998
Directed by Ken Loach
Written by Paul Laverty
With Peter Mullan, Louise Goodall, David McKay
Approx. 105 mins. 35mm.
“Joe (Peter Mullan), the hero of Ken Loach’s funny and excoriating movie, starts things off by announcing that he is on the wagon. This being Loach, you can be fairly certain that Joe will spend the next ninety minutes falling off it, and, sure enough, he winds up in a foul blur of booze. What comes in between—and, in a terrible way, sets him back on the path of self-destruction—is a love affair. This unemployed Glaswegian meets a health worker named Sarah (Louise Goodall), who appears to offer him a better sort of life. But his old habits and connections die hard, and Mullan’s combative, unsentimental performance makes Joe’s slow ruin not just credible but unavoidable.” – Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
Reviews
“The ending…left me stunned. I've rarely seen a film where the conclusion is so unexpected, and yet, in its own way, so logical, and so inevitable.”
– Roger Ebert