The Angels’ Share
UK, FRANCE, BELGIUM, ITALY
2012 – DCP – colour – 101’
Direction: Ken Loach
Screenplay: Paul Laverty
Cinematography: Robbie Ryan
Editing: Jonathan Morris
Set design: Fergus Clegg
Music: George Fenton
Costumes: Carole K. Fraser
Cast: Paul Brannigan (Robbie), John Henshaw (Harry), Gary Maitland (Albert), Jasmin Riggins (Mo), William Ruane (Rhino), Roger Allam (Thaddeus), Siobhan Reilly (Leonie)
Producer: Rebecca O’Brien
Production: Sixteen Films, Whynot Productions, Wild Bunch, BFI, Les Films du Fleuve
SINOPSIS
Robbie is a young man from Glasgow trying to break free from a family feud that has held him captive. While carrying out a sentence for community service, Robbie meets Rhino, Albert and Mo, for whom employment, as it has been for him, is little more than a distant dream. During an educational trip to a distillery in Edinburgh, Robbie demonstrates a hidden talent as a taster, but his interest is instead drawn to the news that the distillery will soon auction off a barrel of whiskey of considerable value.
Critical Note
“Reading between the lines, Loach seems to be telling us that now, rebellion can only be defined as an act of resistance by the individual—a daily practice of a necessary defiance. The rallying cries are no longer land and freedom, bread and roses. Instead, they are an unwavering faith in something more elusive, yet, magically, more concrete, more real: The Angels’ Share. And perhaps this represents the final surrender of this realist cinema to the mainstream, an acknowledgment that beyond its auteur nature, its value lies in its dirty and honest simplicity, in its sincere devotion to the bodies, in its ability to bring out the instinctive intensity of its actors.” (Aldo Spiniello, Sentieri Selvaggi, 13/12/2012)
PREMI E FESTIVAL
2012 Cannes Film Festival – Competition: Jury Prize
2012 San Sebastián IFF: Audience Award
2012 BAFTA Awards, Scotland: Best Writer, Actor
2012 Amazonas FF: Best Screenplay
2013 Sarasota FF – Best in World Cinema: Audience Award
BACK TO < PROTAGONIST OF EUROPEAN CINEMA