My Name Is Joe begins with Joe Kavanagh at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, relaying an experience from his past. He states the ritualised greeting: ‘My name is Joe and I’m an alcoholic.’ He feels that he is not in a position to drink any more with safety. He tells the group that he copes by praying and states that he is grateful to be at the meeting.
He then goes round to his friend’s place, bangs on the door and pretends to be the police. They then travel in Joe’s van where they examine stolen sporting merchandise which is of low quality. Joe and his friends stop at another person’s house to pick up more people. A car cuts off the van. Joe later encounters the driver, whom Joe later describes as being ‘the woman who tried to kill us all.’ He exits his van and asks the woman if she lost her guide dog. The woman, Sarah, states that she is a health visitor.
She wants to see Liam and his child, but Joe explains that Liam has an important football game to attend. Joe is very encouraging as a coach. The other team appears in white and black, which are the colours that Joe’s team wears. Joe’s team express their anger at this and respond by taking their shirts off so that they are able to distinguish between players. The other team scores the first goal of the game.
Joe drives Liam home and Liam abruptly tells Joe to pull over and Liam runs up to a male who acts aggressively towards him. Joe does not hear what transpires between Liam and the man. Later, Joe sees Sarah, who is seen struggling with wallpaper in her car. Joe appears to fancy her, as Sarah tells him her name and he flirts with her. Joe then helps an acquaintance of Sarah’s to complete a wall papering and paint job in Sarah’s flat. Sarah later brings them tea as they paint the ceiling and sing to themselves.
They then look outside and notice someone taking photos of them through the window. Joe runs outside with his can of white paint and brush to confront the man who was taking the photos. The photographer tells Joe that he was just doing his job and that he has a bad heart. Joe then paints all over the photographer’s car. The car speeds away and manages to knock over a pile of rubbish by the side of the road.
My Name Is Joe is a 1998 British film directed by Ken Loach. The film stars Peter Mullan as Joe Kavanagh, an unemployed recovering alcoholic in Glasgow who meets and falls in love with a health visitor. David McKay plays his troubled friend Liam. The film’s title is a reference to the ritualised greeting performed in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, as portrayed in the film’s opening scene.
The movie was mainly filmed in the council estates of Glasgow and filling small roles with local residents, many of whom had drug and criminal pasts. The Scottish accents of some of the actors are unintelligible to many of the American audience and therefore the film is often shown subtitled there. (Ken Loach has a policy that actors should speak in their natural accent on film, and his early film Kes faced a similar problem with the South Yorkshire dialect that restricted its distribution even within England). The film won awards in many film festivals, including Best Actor for Mullan at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
My Name Is Joe (1998)
Directed by: Ken Loach
Starring: Peter Mullan, Louise Goodall, Gary Lewis, David McKay, Lorraine McIntosh, Anne-Marie Kennedy, David Hayman, Anne-Marie Kennedy, Scott Hannah
Screenplay by: Paul Laverty
Production Design by: Martin Johnson
Cinematography by: Barry Ackroyd
Film Editing by: Jonathan Morris
Costume Design by: Rhona Russell
Art Direction by: Fergus Clegg
Music by: George Fenton
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language and some violence, sexuality and drug use.
Distributed by: Channel Four Films, Artisan Entertainment
Release Date: November 20, 1998
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