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Loach's third feature established his position as the most important director in British cinema through its irate but credible attack on the institution of psychiatry and toxic bourgeois values. It remains among the most emotionally potent films from this period. FAMILY LIFE relates the story of nineteen-year-old Janice, a desultory, lost soul who drifts toward schizophrenia trying to conform to the demands of society and her inflexible parents, who view all her woes as a function of her “irresponsibility.” Unable to hold down a job, forced to get an abortion, Janice soon even loses the benefit of a doctor who defies conventional medical wisdom in his disavowal of drugs as the only solution to all psychological disorders. As accomplished and heart-rending as anything Loach has since directed, FAMILY LIFE still leaves very few viewers unmoved. “Ken Loach has succeeded in creating a disturbing and provocative film. . . . [his] probing direction and the sensitive acting ward off the pitfalls of self-consciousness, didactics and schematics” (Variety).
Film is in English with French subtitles.
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