“Jimmy’s Hall,” about an Irish expat who returns from exile to his small village and reopens a community hall is an Irish “Footloose.”
“We just want to dance,” a girl tells the ex-pat who returns from America with a Victrola and jazz records. So why not put on a show?
Because the same “masters and pastors” who caused James Gralton to flee to Depression era America ten years earlier see all non-church related activities as a communist ploy.
The hall is not just home to music and dance, jig and swing, there is boxing, art, literature and politics.
“First it’s the dancing, then the books. He’ll start with their feet and work his way to their brains if they have any,” warns a pastor leading the charge against him then and now.
“The language of brotherhood spreads like wildfire,” he warns, not admiringly.
In other words not much has changed and history is about to repeat itself. In fact, spoiler alert: Gralton, played by Barry Ward, became a hunted man and the only person to be deported from Ireland (because he carried a US passport).
As with anything Irish, especially by Ken Loach, director of the IRA drama “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” the politics are as thick as the accents and some moments will be impenetrable to outsiders.
The mood turns from joyous to somber as surely as the warm colors of harvest turn to moonlight. And the green fields and hills of mythical Ireland are subverted by an ugly past running through them like a muddy road.
Three stars ***
With Barry Ward, Francis Magee, Simone Kirby, Brian F. O’Byrne, Jim Norton, Aileen Henry. Written by Paul Laverty. Produced by Rebecca O’Brien. Directed by Ken Loach. Rated PG-13, language, violence. Approximate running time: 109 minutes.
Tags: Footloose, Jimmy's Hall, Ken Loach Posted by