First film of the Letterboxd Festival.

I am currently unfamilar with the works of Ken Loach and this film alone makes me want to venture through his entire filmography. He uses beautiful cinematography and tight pacing to tell such an uncompromising and difficult tale to tell. He handles the story with ellegance, passion, realism, and such terrific skill. Cilian Murphy gives easily his best performance here. He is so fantastic and much like the rest of the cast, there are points that it seems so real you forget you are watching trained actors on screen. Such beautiful yet brutal imagery. It drags on a little too long in the end, but this is still an excellent film. Powerful and heartbreaking.