Jimmy's Hall

This latest addition to British filmmaker Ken Loach's oeuvre of meticulously realistic, socially conscious films about downtrodden people challenging the dominant political narrative is set in 1932 in bucolic County Leitrim, which is still recovering from the Irish Civil War some 10 years earlier. The story centers on Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward), who returns home after being deported to Depression-era America because he was deemed subversive by the Roman Catholic Church. Jimmy is back to help his ailing mother (Aileen Henry) with the family farm, but he soon gravitates to meetings at Pearse-Connolly Hall (which he founded a decade earlier), now refurbished and revitalized into a community center where young people come to study the poetry of W.B. Yeats and other Irish icons, while also enjoying popular music, dancing, and boxing. “What is this craze for pleasure?” questions Father Sheridan (Jim Norton), describing the hall's activities as the “Los Angeles-ization” of the culture. At this burgeoning social hub, Jimmy reunites with Oonagh (Simone Kirby)—his now-married former sweetheart—but their sexual attraction becomes virtuously sublimated into collective organizing, which eventually erupts into a protest against the forced eviction of poor tenant laborers from the estates of wealthy landowners. Loach uncharacteristically skims over the sociopolitical context here to concentrate on the fictionalized conflict between provocateur Gralton and the oppressive clergy, winding up with a somewhat stolid and romanticized portrait of real-life Celtic agitator Gralton. Optional. [Note: Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by costars Barry Ward and Simone Kirby, a “making-of” featurette (35 min.), deleted scenes (8 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a lesser film by celebrated director Loach.] (S. Granger)