Our hero has the old-movie dilemma of choosing between the needs of an old friend and a new love. Joe is a Bogart story, Scotland-style. Mullan won the best actor award at Cannes last year, and he deserves it. When Mullan finally loses his temper, it's a shock. The funny thing about fashion is that it always turns 360 degrees.
Economic inequality is extreme today.
It may be that Loach wasn't the last of a wave of working-class filmmakers so much as he is the swell of the next wave.