Raining Stones

Released 1993
Stars Bruce Jones, Julie Brown, Ricky Tomlinson, Gemma Phoenix, Tom Hickey
Directed by Ken Loach

"Raining Stones" is the latest, the gentlest and the funniest of Ken Loach's films about working-class life in modern Britain. It tells the stories of men clinging precariously to their self-respect, in a world with no jobs for them.

Bob and his wife, Anne, live with their daughter, Coleen in a poor district in the North of England. They are short on funds, but Bob is determined to provide his daughter with a new dress for her first communion. The parish priest tries to talk him out of it (cheaper or second-hand dresses are available), but Bob wants the best for his daughter, and the movie is the story of how he tries to raise the money to buy the dress.

The dialogue is all in the dialect of the [Northern England] district, and is sometimes hard to understand, although I was never in doubt about what essentially was being said. The film is good-hearted and the characters are easy to identify with, but what I liked best was the underlying humor, even in this desperate situation. These are characters whose minds have not been deadened and who are naturally articulate and even poetic. Even their obscenities are musical and well-timed, not merely crude. The movies are filled with people who want to win fortunes or blow up the world. I cared more about the first communion dress.

Summary by Roger Ebert