When a couple of unemployed workers from Manchester stoop as low as grabbing a sheep and trying to sell it as meat to local butchers, you can't imagine things getting any lower. Only Ken Loach's "Raining Stones" does go lower and one of them, Bob, faces a moral crisis.
An unemployed plumber, Bob (Bruce Jones), is trying to support his wife, Anne (Julie Brown) and their young daughter, Coleen (Gemma Phoenix), who is getting ready for her first Communion. Naturally she needs a Communion dress and though the local priest says there is no shame in giving her one of their pristine dresses, Bob stubbornly says he will buy her one - he has to keep his pride (and the poor guy just had his green van stolen). Plumbing is something Bob tries from door-to-door unsuccessfully. His good friend, Tommy (Ricky Tomlinson), is also unemployed and feels shame in accepting money from his daughter who is presumably making a killing in selling perfume, makeup, etc. Bob and Tommy try everything from selling sheep meat, to cutting patches of grass to sell to a landscaping company - that's just what they do in pairs. Bob tries his hand at bouncing at a nightclub which ends with him spotting Tommy's daughter selling drugs - he is fired for being unable to prove that any drug pushing took place. This is a curious moment because Bob never tells Tommy that he spotted her. Everyone is going through enough turmoil.
"Raining Stones" is practically a documentary of the Manchester working class during a depression where financial woes and unemployment can cause a strain in families. Nothing new about that notion yet Ken Loach makes Bob and Tommy not into losers but rather optimistic men who are trying their damnedest to work for a living. He wants to keep his youngest daughter Coleen happy, to make his wife happy, yet he keeps making mistakes. A subplot involving Bob getting a loan from a tough loan shark is very intense and dramatically satisfying because we know it is all about the Communion dress. If Bob can make anyone happy, it won't be himself - it will be his daughter.
Whether it is the working class conditions from Glasgow in Bill Forsyth's "That Sinking Feeling" or Mike Leigh's own British tales of woe ("Naked" is one of his most powerful), I have a deep admiration for such stories because they are about people struggling yet nothing stops them from trying. "Raining Stones" is one tale of woe that kept me on the edge of my seat. I worried for Bob and his family and hoped that he would get out of the troubling financial situations he was in and find a job. Never has that seemed so meaningful and potent as in "Raining Stones."
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