Movie

Riff-Raff

1991 · 95 min

Gritty, funny and quietly furious, it drops you into hardscrabble working lives with warmth, rough humour and a slow-building ache.

Overview: Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. Working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with unemployment. Some help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, an aspiring singer.

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How it feels

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Tone: melancholicstrength 2 of 3
satiricalstrength 2 of 3
warmstrength 2 of 3
bleakstrength 2 of 3
Pacing: measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention: engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes: class
politics
addiction
isolation
Places: big city
workplace
home
Era: contemporary
Audience: adult
Form: ensemble
Content intensity: Gore none
Language strong
Violence mild
Sex mild

All scales, 0 to 10

Scales, 0 to 10
Scale	Value	0 to 10
Action	2
Horror	1
Humour	5
Realism	9
Romance	4
Tension	4
Darkness	6
Complexity	4
Emotional weight	7

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Where to watch in the UK

Rent or buy

Apple TV Store
Rakuten TV
Amazon Video
YouTube

Streaming data from JustWatch.All options on TMDB

Details

Genres: comedy, drama
Directed by: Ken Loach
Written by: Bill Jesse
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Emer McCourt, George Moss, Jimmy Coleman, Ricky Tomlinson, David Finch, Peter Mullan, Richard Belgrave
Music: Stewart Copeland
Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd
Runtime: 95 min
Country: United Kingdom
Languages: English

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Riff-Raff

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