Poor Cow
Director: Ken Loach
Writer: Ken Loach, Nell Dunn
Based on: Nell Dunn’s novel
Cast: Carol White, Terence Stamp, John Bindon, Queenie Watts, Kate Williams
Seen on: 29.12.2024

Plot:
Joy (Carol White) thought she was happy with Tom (John Bindon) but then Tom gets arrested and leaves Joy stranded with their child and no good way to earn money. Finding refuge with her Auntie Emm (Queenie Waits), and a job at a bar looks promising at first, but isn’t quite enough. And then Tom’s friend Dave (Terence Stamp) shows up and promises to fill Joy’s loneliness. But Dave isn’t all that safe either.

Poor Cow is Ken Loach’s first feature and shows once more that filmmaking is a skill that people tend to learn over time. Loach certainly grew as a filmmaker, but there are already interesting moments in Poor Cow.

I really hate the film’s title, Poor Cow. It feels incredibly derogatory to Joy who tries to do the best under bad, patriarchal circumstances and with very few options, exacerbated by her working class status. The novel this is based on has the same title, but just from the wikipedia description of it, it seems a little clearer in its feminist criticism than the movie version. (Loach’s skill at social commentary through film has also grown, it appears).

But the title is the only part of the film that I hated, even if not all of the parts worked equally well for me. White and Stamp make for an explosive pair on screen in a relationship that is definitely not aspirational but understandable. And Joy’s pragmatism and self-awareness in many ways help that the story doesn’t become too depressing despite all the shitty circumstances.

Loach plays around with style and form, as is to be expected in a first feature, and not all of these experiments are productive for the film. That makes it a little long at times, the pacing not quite right, the story sometimes a little overwrought.

But there is much here to like already, many hints of the future filmmaker in Loach, especially in the themes that the keeps pursuing throughout his career. While I didn’t exactly love poor Cow, it was engaging and made me curious about the novel. 

Summarizing: not bad but shows room for growth.