I love to see films about the working class and the strictures and hardships of maintaining a living under rough conditions. Director Ken Loach has made two films about the London working class that I've seen and admired, "Raining Stones" and now "Riff-Raff." Both films use a documentary style, a mere observation of such people without doing anything fancy with art-direction or elongated camera moves. If there was art-direction done, then I didn't see it because everything feels and looks real enough to be called a gritty expose of former Prime Minister's Margaret Thatcher's England.
Expensive condominiums are being built and laborers are needed. Robert Carlyle is Stevie, a homeless former thief and ex-con who finds work with a construction company that has no union and where the boss could care less about the working conditions (a faulty scaffold figures prominently throughout the story). The crew helps Stevie find a home in an abandoned flat that they simply break into (this is fascinating because no police is ever called onto this environment, as if squatting was just an expected way of life). Stevie forms a friendship with Larry (Ricky Tomlinson, who also starred in "Raining Stones"), a worker who makes speeches about the state of the proletariat and naming (rightfully) Thatcher as the one who should take the blame, stressing that everyone deserves a home (Very timely, to this day). Tomlinson was, by the way, an actual laborer (a plasterer) and worked in the very same conditions displayed here.
Meanwhile, Stevie finds a purse within all the construction debris and returns it to its owner, Susan (Emer McCourt), a wannabe singer who's often booed at clubs unless she sings a Beatles tune. Their relationship is the most concrete in "Riff-Raff" and one that is not likely to last. They move in together yet Stevie can't embrace much hospitality from her or elicit any real emotions. His description of the hellish relationship he had with his heroin-addicted brother will leave you haunted and sad.
"Riff-Raff" is rough going at times and some dialogue (thick Scottish accent in particular) is unintelligible to this Spanish-born reviewer (there is a theatrical version with subtitles but the version I saw, I had to turn on the subtitles and rewind back for some of the jokes, which are somewhat funny). One standout scene has Larry bathing in the newly built bathroom of this condo until he's discovered by buyers, mostly Muslin women - it is hilarious and in keeping with the film's theme of the proletariat trying to have a taste of how the wealthy live. Another scene features Larry complaining about the working conditions to the boss and is promised improvements, which results in him getting fired. That is what I love about Ken Loach's approach to the material - swinging between humor and grit while maintaining the unforgivable realities.
"Riff-Raff" is not perfect but it certainly is raw and humorous (the ending is literally explosive). You get a good sense of how these workers are treated and how they treat themselves in the wake of such despair. Loach doesn't offer hope, just a gripping sense of a world that barely gets much press. I'll say this much - it made me glad that I have a job and a home.
