Touches You

Memorable, crazy movie

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film 'It's A Free World' captures the story of a self-employed woman, Angie, who starts up a recruitment agency with her flatmate Rose. They employ immigrants from Eastern Europe who live in the London underbelly, illegally of course. In my opinion, the actors chosen by the famous film director Ken Loach did an extraordinary job, their performance is incredibly realistic, true to life, nothing seems black and white. Angie, performed by the unknown Kierston Waring is a strong-minded character who doesn't think twice before doing things, but she is a real warrior even if she isn't always honest with the immigrants and herself. Rose is more rational-minded, she stands up for justice and equality. This film is a masterpiece of social realism, it shows disregard for humanity, an eye-opening mirror of the English society. It also reflects on European problems, especially immigration workers. On one hand the plot is really disturbing, upsetting and can even be frightening, on the other hand it is poignant and entertaining. I really enjoyed the way it has been shot, the camera is always moving, we can see interesting filming perspectives. I think that this film is really important for us, young people to see and understand. Even if it is happening in the United Kingdom, it concerns the whole E.U.. And with the Brexit it became even more relevant for us to know what is going on in England! We are the new generation who has to fight for justice, equality and peace, against segregation and separation between different classes! So thanks to great artists like Ken Loach, people get informed about a gripping reality. Now it is up to us to react, to organise, to fight for a better world!

Angie (Kierston Wareing) is frustrated after getting fired from being a recruiter. She's 33 and in debt. She's tired of dead end jobs and decides to start her own recruitment agency with her flatmate Rose (Juliet Ellis). They struggle to build up the business as Angie gets pulled into using illegals as laborers. Her son Jamie is getting in trouble at school and her parents want her to be more involved. They disapprove of her work. She's sleeping with Pole laborer Karol. Mahmoud is an illegal and political dissident from Iran who has his wife and kids.Director Ken Loach tackles the modern world of labor and illegal immigration in a real world way. It's all murky and ethically challenged. Wareing is pretty good. She's great as a hard-headed woman always striving. There is a shocking turn. It's not the shocking turn that I would expect. I can't complain because it fits the murky ethics that is the backbone of this movie. This has a point of view and sticks to it all the way to the very last scene.

It's not often one sees a film on migrant workers in England from Eastern Europe. These workers are exploited as in underpaid or not paid. The film has a gritty and convincing performance from the lead actress (Kierston Wareing).However there is a lack of logic and continuity in the movie. There are too many sub-plots that go nowhere and are distractive. She has an on and off again romance with a Polish worker which does not really add anything to the plot. She helps a family from Iran for a day and they conveniently disappear. The scenes with her son – who is being cared for by her parents – are more tangible.At the end of the movie she is physically assaulted by workers who are demanding to be paid. They take her money and threaten to kidnap her son. The very next scene abruptly takes us to the Ukraine where she is continuing to recruit. Then the movie ends!!

That film has to be seen all over the world. It shows how in our globalized world the migration of people is perfectly organized and managed outside all legality with the accomplice-ship and cooperation of most governments or national services in the western countries concerned by these migrations. Here London, England. The volunteers (!?!) are essentially coming from the European Community (Poland) but also non members states from eastern Europe (Ukraine) and some countries going through a crisis like Iran and Iraq. The human beings are cattle as soon as they put their first toe in the system. They pay heftily for their passage first, just like the Jewish community had to pay for the passage of the Jews who were deported to Auschwitz. Then they will be exploited at two levels. First by the skyrocketing rents they pay for one fourth of a room or one fifth of a caravan. Second they will get some work every morning for the day and with no certitude of anything: no contract, no health insurance, no guaranteed payment of the miserable salary, no guaranteed schooling for the children. Everything is done outside any official declaration, evading taxes and all controls. And no serious service is doing anything to find out and bring things back in line. But the worst part is, though some men are behind this kind of slave market, the main flesh-eating character is a white woman, a false blonde, divorced with an 11 year old son abandoned to her own parents. She has a black associate who will finally drop out when the other trespasses beyond the narrow line between exploitation and slavery on one side and cattle- or even garbage-processing on the other. One day she will call immigration authorities to report a clandestine camp in order to get it emptied for her load of slaves that is arriving on the following morning. The black woman will be replaced and the whole forced-labor merry-go-round will start again and amplify its operation. The only advantage of being exploited by a woman is that young males will have to perform some personal service to the female slave-manager to get work on the following day. A film to be seen urgently. I was divinely surprised by the causticity of Ken Loach I was considering as slightly tamed before seeing this film. He can still bite, the old pit-bull.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines