Jimmy's Hall

Ireland, 1932. Jimmy Gralton comes home after ten years of exile in America. Years before he had opened a hall in the village: a place for dancing, music, lessons, painting and argument. The church and the landowners had it closed. The young people ask him to open it again. He does, and the same fight begins. Ken Loach directs from a screenplay by Paul Laverty, his long standing collaborator. Barry Ward plays Gralton. Jimmy Gralton was real, and the most striking part of the story is in the record: in 1933 he was deported from Ireland. It remains the only case of an Irishman deported from his own country, justified on the grounds of his American citizenship. The film's interest is not politics but who cultural space belongs to. What happens in the hall is not revolutionary: jazz is played, Irish dance is taught, poetry is read. The church objects because the issue is not the content but who granted permission. Loach announced this as his last fiction film and then returned with I, Daniel Blake. Who it is for: viewers interested in Ken Loach's political cinema and in Irish history. Who it is not for: the narrative is soft compared to his harder films, and the characters divide too plainly into good and bad.