Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Emil Bakkum Director Ken Loach describes in the film "Bread and roses" the struggle of an American trade union in order to improve the working conditions of the janitors. And they are actually victorious, since finally the firm gives in to their demands. So on the surface Bread and roses is another homage to the search for freedom and justice. Joke, to make this review more attractive: a lawyer, who assists a client in a law suit, calls him: "Justice has prevailed!" The client replies: "So we have lost the case?" Loach is like that. Although his films always concern the socially deprived, the personal shortcomings of the main characters dominate the social injustice. This makes his films rather gloomy, since the viewer finds it hard to identify with the characters. Bread and roses fits particularly well in this scheme of Loach. Although probably the "Justice for janitors" campaign was not as glorious as its reputation, Bread and roses really sketches an unfavorable image. The main character Maya is selfcentred and almost devoid of morals. She has a knack for making strangers immediately. When she enters the USA from Mexico as an illegal immigrant, she and her sister Rosa even cheat on the human traffickers. Maya accepts a job offer in a public house, but she soon gets into a fight with customers. Then she wants to work as a cleaning woman, just like her sister Rosa. The husband of Rosa is unemployed, he suffers from diabetes, and has never paid for health care insurance. Rosa is a former prostitute, who is still in the habit. She does not even know who is the father of her children, so apparently she economizes on contraceptives. If here Loach mocks at her, I find it a bit morbid. In her cleaning work Maya retains her lax attitude. Just one detail: she uses the stationery of the clients of her cleaning firm to write her personal letters. Hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance? Her colleagues are industrious. Maya complains that they do anything for the money. However, it must be admitted that her employer is harsh. For instance, he does not pay for health care. So the firm has low costs, and ousts the unionized competitors from the market. Obviously the union dislikes this. Therefore one of her organizers instigates the workers of the cleaners firm, including Maya, and harasses its clients. He does not shun aggressive methods, like disturbance of the domestic peace. Maya, who always loves to complain, agitates for the union. At the same time, she robs an employee of a gas station, who tries to help her. She is indeed a prime candidate for natural de-selection. In the end she is arrested. The state offers her a lawyer free of charge, but she asks for a witness for the defence (joke). Maya is expelled to Mexico, without imprisonment. Incidentally, it strikes me, that Loach imputes a hatred of the American society to the illegal immigrants in his film. So how should Bread and roses be rated? The quality of Loach films lies in their excellence in showing the room for social improvements. But personally, I prefer films that show at least a glimpse of human kindness and decency.

independent-6 A great film,-good story, good actor. The direct actions of the characters in the film are brilliantly displayed protesting against Corporate America and standing up for justice as it relates to immigrant rights in California. Si se puede! This film was just as good as other documentaries on the same subject matter. The main character girl was good,-just saw it on an HBO Channel from start to finish, on my day off! Short, independent film with only two actors that looked like familiar faces.Si Se Puede! Visit www.ireportla.com

Always_against_torture On the whole I have been greatly impressed with Ken Loach's other works, however, without question, this was the low point in my experiences with his films. Speaking as a Brit with a lot of North American life experience, I would say that Ken understands and portrays British society brilliantly, however, he hopelessly misunderstands American society. At one point, for example, one of the evil company bosses is supposed to be excruciatingly shamed in public by the gutsy and imaginative union organiser who crashes his lunch meeting ... only, in America, this simply wouldn't work - at all - in a restaurant like that in the US the other patrons would respect someone for making money & not give a crap what some "scrub" had to say about the percentage rate of profit that went into x dental plan, or what have you (I'm not really sure that that would work in Britain or anywhere else either - but in any event, it seems to me, never in the US & especially never in LA). As such, all the fabulous nuance that invades Loach's British based films is starkly absent in this one. Consequently, watching Bread and Roses was quite literally an excruciating experience - like watching a childhood hero fail embarrassingly, & without grace. Ken creating wooden characters? How is it possible?? (See above). I don't consider myself political. I am someone interested in ideas, fairness and justice. I respect people who approach the world with those ideas in mind. On this basis I usually have all the time in the world for the films that Ken creates. But realistically, I can't recommend this one. In the end I gave this movie a 5 & a half (then rounded up) but all of its score comes from a particular realistic, powerful and highly revealing moment. There's too much of the remainder left over, however, for that single moment to carry the whole.

sth2 I had a direct involvement in matters portrayed in this film. I knew the players on all sides. I directly witnessed many of the raucous and disruptive rallies that the SEIU Union conducted. I can tell you that this is a glorified view of the Union leaders, the Justice for Janitors campaign, and their side of the labor movement in Southern California at the time. Company leaders are vilified and made into raging buffoons straight out of central casting. The film is full of the anti-employer and immigrants as victims rhetoric which will thrill a pro-union pro-immigration audience. If politics and the labor agenda are not your cup of tea, this movie will not be either.