Rent Bread and Roses (2000)

Know Your Rights! - Bread and Roses review by Steve

The best of a trilogy of films by Ken Loach in the late 1990s made outside the UK and Ireland- though he doesn't stray from his usual themes. It's a condemnation of the exploitation of Hispanic workers in Los Angeles; based on a real life fight for unionisation rights by office cleaners.

And it's about the experiences of the Central American diaspora, who do the low paid jobs no one else wants in the land of the free. Loach and writer Paul Laverty also rebuke the iniquities of corporate corruption and US healthcare. And weirdly, there's a scene satirising Hollywood liberals!

The move to LA gives Loach a palpable boost, with the bright sunshine and a lively cast of mostly amateur Mexican actors, led by Pilar Padilla as a feisty illegal immigrant not afraid to push back. And there's some effective humour too, which may indicate the use of improv....

We get real-deal star charisma from Adrien Brody as a union leader; one of only three actors in Loach films to go on to Oscars for Best Actor*! Sure, it's agitprop on behalf of the unions, suitable for open day teaching sessions. But it pushes the right buttons, and with considerable impact.

*Frances McDormand in Hidden Agenda (1990) and Cillian Murphy in The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006).