Ratcatcher
Glasgow, mid-Seventies. A garbagemen's strike afflicts the city. While boys muck around in the diseased water, a drowning occurs, and 12-year-old James Gillespie's life changes forever. From the first moments of this bleak Scottish export, the misery of these people is deeply felt. Children come of age long before their time as families are broken by poverty, drink, death, and grime. Yet writer/director Ramsay produces poetry in all this devastation. Ratcatcher is an inner-city tragedy that plays its story simply, sorrowfully, and beautifully.
"...12-year-old James Gillespie's life changes forever. From the first moments of this bleak Scottish export, the misery of these..."
March 2, 2001 Movie Review by Kimberley Jones