Ae Fond Kiss...

Casim lives in Glasgow, the son of a family from Pakistan. He works as a disc jockey at a club and plans to open a place of his own. His family has already settled whom he will marry; a cousin is coming from Pakistan and the wedding is being prepared. Casim does not object. Then he meets Roisin; she teaches music at his sister's school and is an Irish Catholic. A relationship begins. Casim does not tell his family. Roisin has trouble on her own side too; because she is divorced her position at the school is questioned by the church. Ken Loach directs; Paul Laverty wrote the screenplay. Atta Yaqub and Eva Birthistle are in the cast. It is a British production with partners. It was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and won the prize for screenplay. The title comes from a poem by Robert Burns. The matter it treats is pressure from two sides; the Muslim family and the Catholic institution intervene at the same time and the film handles both in equal measure. Loach's method holds here too; some of the cast are not professionals and the scenes were shot in sequence. The narrative offers no easy resolution and the ending is left open. Its strongest side is the family scenes; the position of the sisters is worked out separately. Its limit is register; the narrative is didactic at times and some dialogue states the argument outright. Who it is for: viewers who like Ken Loach and social realist drama. Who it is not for: it is slow, the argument plain, and the romance conventional.