'It's a Free World' A Summary and Critique by Lucas LETELLIER

IT’S A FREE WORLD

“It’s a Free World” is a British drama film directed by the famous film-maker Ken Loach that was released in 2007 in the UK.

Angie is an ambitious working class woman who is frustrated at working in little and low paid jobs. She has a lot of debts and she is not able to educate her kid, Jamie, on her own so he lives with his grandparents. She works for a British recruitment company in London that employs its workforce in the ex-USSR countries such as Poland. After a work trip to Katowice, she gets fired for no reason. She is 32 and as it is her thirtieth job since she started working, she decides to make a change in her professional life to reverse her insecure situation. Discussing it with her friend and also flat mate Rose, she decides to start up her own recruitment business with the help of Rose, in Andy’s restaurant courtyard. Rose is a bit reluctant as they don’t have any license but Angie promises her that as soon as they earn profits, they will make it legal. Angie also promises her friend and new colleague not to employ any illegal workers, only the ones from the European Union but under the pressure of the employers she works with, they start employing illegal immigrant workers and giving them fake passports. Rose isn’t too sure about that but she finally accepts. After one of the employer refuses to pay Angie and Rose’s twenty employees, the situation gets worse for the two businesswomen and Rose becomes more and more worried because some of the workers threaten them. Angie tries desperately to keep it running and one day she anonymously informs the police about a camp of immigrants to place her newly arrived Ukrainian workers. This event was too much for Rose and she finally decides to quit. Few days later, the unpaid workers kidnap her son and tie her up to receive their money. They find a quarter of what they were due and released her son. At the end of the movie, Angie completely gives up her scruples and goes further into the illegal recruitment of immigrants to get her out of her disastrous financial situation.

In this movie, Ken Loach shows the difficulties of people to have a decent work for both British people and immigrants. The expansion of the European Union to the countries of ex-USSR has given new opportunities for those populations but it has also made the competition disloyal for the West European workers and led to the exploitation of this new workforce. With the example of Angie’s situation and her will to succeed by employing illegal workers, paying them badly with no guarantee of work the next day, Ken Loach shows how some people can become immoral and forget their values to try to escape this situation.

“It’s a Free World” is great movie to understand people’s professional difficulties nowadays. Through Angie’s character, we both understand and dislike the choices she makes and this makes us feel uncomfortable.