Ken Loach’s latest film, It’s a Free World premiered in Brooklyn last week and is now available On Demand on IFC’s Festival Direct. The director takes us from the world of The Wind That Shakes the Barley to a different time and place, present day London, to explore the world of foreign labor - legal and illegal.

Our companion on this journey is Angie (Kierston Wareing) a single mom who is trying to overcome being wrongly fired by a recruitment agency. The recruiting she had been doing was of workers from Eastern Europe to crappy, low paying jobs in London. Upon her termination Angie decides she can run her own recruiting business and after convincing her housemate Rose to help her, Angie is out on a motorbike trying to draw up contracts with local factories. Most of the men she tries to get deals with warn her of the dark side of this world, but as we get to know Angie, we realize that a warning could never stop her.

The rest of the movie documents Angie’s slow decline and acceptance of a world that is anything but free and is actually very ugly. Wareing is particularly amazing and creates a character that is as much a victim of the world as she is an oppressor. What’s really great about the film though, is that it resists any urge to clean up everything and put a nice bow on top.

The New York Times review seemed to look down on It’s a Free World because it presents no solutions to the problems that it examines, but for me, seeing a film that doesn’t dumb down the issue or make you feel more comfortable with it by the time the lights come up is a solution in and of itself. Sure you may feel a bit helpless, but hopefully that helpless feeling causes you to consider the issues and the larger systems at play. I also think that the different ways Rose and Angie deal with their situation indirectly presents the solution of personal responsibility and really drives home the idea that the line between helping and hurting isn’t very clear.

Like I said, the film is now On Demand - so be sure to check it out. The trailer is below to give you a taste and be sure to and learn how you can be personally responsible and find out who is making the various products you buy.