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Jul 03, 2015 By Shawn Hazelett Web Exclusive

A great deal of fiction set in twentieth century Ireland deals with tension surrounding the Troubles. The Crying Game, In the Name of the Father, and When the Wind Shakes the Barley are just a short sample in recent cinema, the latter of which was directed by Ken Loach and won the Palm D’Or at Cannes. His latest, Jimmy’s Hall—set in Ireland in the 1930s—focuses on a bigger conflict, one that was the most polarizing of the twentieth century: communism and fascism. Though rarely discussed in relation to Ireland, the divide aroused unwanted fear in a tiny country trying to come together.

After 10 years in America, Jimmy Gralton returns to his small Irish community to look after his aging mother. Years earlier, he had run the Pearse-Connolly Hall, a commune swarmed by local peasants who took classes in art, literature, and music and where young people could dance. Jimmy’s resulting popularity and influence—and the fact that the Catholic Church could control neither—posed a threat in a period of instability, causing the church to effectively banish him. Though he returns to a more mature and stable Ireland, Father Sheridan, fearing the hall reopening, has a steady eye on him. However, Jimmy is content being solitary. That is until the loud voices of local teenagers who long to dance and an encounter with his former love Oonagh slowly inspires him to reopen it to the public, who immediately reignite its former vibrancy. Still, the response from Father Sheridan is equally strong, singling out and shaming every member of his flock who attended the dance and allying the Church with wealthy Irish landowners, who feel threated by recent global events and solidarity amongst the working class.

Jimmy’s Hall joins Swing Kids and Desert Dancer in a sort of subgenre of politically-charged dance movies, and negative reviews of Jimmy’s Hall are bound to dub it an Irish Footloose. The thing is, Footloose developed a counterpoint to prove its ideals, while the grand parallels and themes Loach attempts to extol are drowned in sanctimony and self-importance. Ken Loach is a fine filmmaker and an idealist, but Jimmy’s Hall—a film that places value on variety and alternate lifestyles—knows what it wants to say from the get-go and is too busy casting its antagonists against cold hues to try anything new.

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Author rating: 4.5/10