Ken Loach's latest is a romantic drama about a Glaswegian bus driver getting entwined with a Nicaraguan refugee, with Trainspotter Robert Carlyle and Oyanka Cabezas in the lead roles. Carlyle as the bus driver is on his usual route one day when a young girl (Cabezas) gets on without paying. Being a nice chap, Carlyle is prepared to overlook it but an inspector gets on at the next stop and causes a rumpus over it. Carlyle tries to defend the girl and even offers to pay the fare himself. The girl gets away with it, Carlyle gets into trouble. He then tracks down where she lives and becomes infatuated by this mysterious girl who busks in his local town centre, leading eventually to both of them going to Nicaragua on a quest to find the girl's former boyfriend.
Although Loach for once overlooks some basic anomalies (it is not disclosed, for instance, how a Glaswegian bus driver would come into enough money to fly himself and a girl across the other side of the world and still have dosh to spend when they get there), the film does at least have some decent performances at the heart of it (especially Carlyle's) and a pleasingly worthwhile and appropriately realistic ending.
The film was made very soon after Loach's last outing, Land And Freedom, and to a certain extent it shows. It feels like a rush-job, Loach on half steam almost, but it still is a good romantic drama filmed in a challenging and realistic Loach style, with characters that are out-of-the-ordinary and a storyline that fits, so if you're into Loach's work, you're still likely to find enough in this one to keep you pleasantly engrossed for a couple of hours.