It’s a Free World

Ken Loach directed this melodramatic study of the exploitation of immigrant labour in London, centering on an unscrupulous single mother who creates a shady employment firm., With a central trope that recalls Jerzy Skolimowski’s Moonlighting (1982), Palme d’Or winner Ken Loach’s ironically titled social-consciousness drama It’s a Free World… dissects the problem of exploited immigrant labor from the perspective of one taking advantage. Actress Kierston Wareing stars as Angie, a native of London’s East End who works for a shady and sketchy employment agency that predominantly hires illegal Eastern European immigrants. Unceremoniously fired from that outfit, she cooks up the scheme of establishing her own such agency with the help of a roommate, Rose (Juliet Ellis); Angie begins scouting the local factories to recruit cheap labor, while Rose puts up a website and mission statement to give the operation a distinct veneer of class and idealism. As Angie flaunts her body and unabashedly uses the lure of sex to attract new clients and business, she ignorantly fails to acknowledge warnings that she may be headed for dangerous waters. Meanwhile, family problems erupt when Angie’s extremely dysfunctional and misguided 11-year-old son, Jamie (Joe Siffleet), gets in trouble for severely beating a classmate, and Angie’s unionist father grows utterly horrified when he learns of his daughter’s activities., Ken Loach directed this melodramatic study of the exploitation of immigrant labor in London, centering on an unscrupulous single mother (Kierston Wareing) who creates a shady employment firm. Juliet Ellis, Leslaw Zurek, Joe Siffleet, Colin Coughlin, Frank Gilhooley., It’s a Free World… , the latest collaboration from the Palme d’Or winning director Ken Loach, writer Paul Laverty (Winner: Best Screenplay – Venice Film Festival 2007) and producer Rebecca O’Brien, is a drama rooted in the world of illegal employment in contemporary Britain. The 90-minute single drama stars newcomers Kierston Wareing and Juliet Ellis. Angie (Wareing) may not have much formal education but she’s got energy, wit and ambition, and she’s in her prime. Not for the first time she’s out of a job. She has a point to prove. Angie and her flatmate Rose (Ellis) decide they can be their own boss. They set up a recruitment agency for immigrant workers which operates in a twilight world where labour is cheap and laws are made to be ignored. Maybe they represent these times: the chance to make as much money as possible, regardless of the consequences, is tempting. But at what cost? Ken Loach commented “The scandal of exploitation is known – for those who want to know. So it’s not breaking new ground in terms of, ‘Shock horror, look what’s happening.’ What we’re more concerned about is just to challenge this prevailing wisdom that ruthless entrepreneurship is the way that this society should develop – that everything is a deal, everything is competitive, acquisitive, market-orientated and that’s the way we should live. It seeks out exploitation. It produces monsters.”, Angie gets on dubious grounds fired from a British recruitment agency who is touring Central Europe in search of hungry workers. She wants revenge and at home in London, she starts her own company in the same industry together with the roommate Rose. They recruit at first immigrants on fair terms, but soon discover that it’s more lucrative for them to hire undocumented workers.