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It's a Free World...

It's a Free World...

Drama · 2007

Working-class Angie, sacked from a recruitment agency for bad public behaviour, teams up with her flatmate to run a similar business from their kitchen. With immigrants desperate for work, the opportunities are considerable, particularly for two girls so in tune with these times.

Movie details

It's a Free World...

2007 Drama 1h 36m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.6 / 10

Community rating

Working-class Angie, sacked from a recruitment agency for bad public behaviour, teams up with her flatmate to run a similar business from their kitchen. With immigrants desperate for work, the opportunities are considerable, particularly for two girls so in tune with these times.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over It's a Free World...?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Nothing Personal

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Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.

Adopt a Highway

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Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.

Home

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Drama · 2021

An ex-felon returns home from prison and must confront the demons of his past.

The River

The River

Drama · 1984

Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.

This Sporting Life

This Sporting Life

Drama · 1963

In early 1960s Northern England, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.

Resurrecting the Champ

Resurrecting the Champ

Drama · 2007

Up-and-coming sports reporter rescues a homeless man ("Champ") only to discover that he is, in fact, a boxing legend believed to have passed away. What begins as an opportunity to resurrect Champ's story and escape the shadow of his father's success becomes a personal journey as the ambitious reporter reexamines his own life and his relationship with his family.

In America

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Drama · 2003

A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.

In This World

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Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

Home Run

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The Old Oak

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Drama · 2023

A pub landlord in a previously thriving mining community struggles to hold onto his pub. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the town when Syrian refugees are placed in the empty houses in the community.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Ken Loach

Written by

Paul Laverty

Kierston Wareing

Kierston Wareing

Angie

J

Juliet Ellis

Rose

Lesław Żurek

Lesław Żurek

Karol

C

Colin Caughlin

Geoff

J

Joe Siffleet

Jamie

Frank Gilhooley

Frank Gilhooley

Derek

D

Davoud Rastgou

Mahmoud

Court is in session

Put It's a Free World... on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.