Directed by
Ken Loach
125 minutes
Rated M
Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
Carla's Song
Ken Loach’s political commitment is to be commended and Carla’s Song gets his message across loud and clear but it doesn’t satisfy as a film. The problem is not so much the rather heavy-handed exposition as a narrative predictability and problematic casting. The story concerns George (Robert Carlyle), a romantically rebellious Glasgow bus-driver, and his relationship with an emotionally-damaged Nicaraguan refugee, Carla (Oyanka Cabezas) who has escaped the Sandanistas v. Contras war in Nicaragua in the late 80s.Get over the thick Scots accent and Carla’s broken English and the primary problem is the speed at which the romance kicks off. Carlyle is effective as the vulnerable heart-of-gold male lead but it is somewhat disconcerting that Carla is so good-looking. Yes it makes for visual appeal but it also makes her a less sympathetic character, her apparent awkwardness seeming almost calculating. Sure enough George throws his lot in with Carla and takes her to Nicaragua to find her boy-friend and gets an education in the horror of it all, with Scott Glenn as Bradley, a former CIA operative turned human-rights worker acting as screenwriter Paul Laverty’s mouthpiece.
I was reminded here of John Duigan’s post-Vietnam political romance, Far East (1982), not so much for the content as the 80s mid-range budget look of the film with its romantic interludes contrasted with acts of political violence. The major problem with this part of the film, however, is that George is out of his depth and Carlyle does not have anything to do except play earnest and cute while the poor-but-happy Nicaraguans play brothers-and-sisters-in-arms.
If the story had been about a Glasgow bus-drivers' strike this sort of righteous camaraderie could have passed as realism but here it is simply familiar padding. Reasonably enough, George comes to realize his irrelevancy but oddly, (scriptwise) Carla doesn’t care that much as she has found her lost love and Bradley is left with task of seeing him off. Unfortunately we can only conclude that like George, Loach should have stayed back home.
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