Bread and Roses (2000)
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65% of critics liked it
(63 reviews) -
75% of users liked it
(3,922 ratings)
Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach directs this grim drama about the plight of seemingly invisible office cleaners in contemporary L.A. who often earn as little as $6 a day without benefits. The film opens as Maya (Pilar Padilla), a young Mexican lass, is reuniting with her older sister Rosa (Elpidia… More Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach directs this grim drama about the plight of seemingly invisible office cleaners in contemporary L.A. who often earn as little as $6 a day without benefits. The film opens as Maya (Pilar Padilla), a young Mexican lass, is reuniting with her older sister Rosa (Elpidia Carrilio) in L.A. after a harrowing cross-border journey. Rosa sets her sister up first with a job as a barmaid, which Maya soon quits after getting repeatedly groped -- and then as a janitor. When her boss demands one month's salary as "commission," Maya happens upon Sam Shapiro (Adrien Brody), a muckraking lawyer and union agitator. This film, which was screened in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, is remarkable for its prescience -- it was shown a month after a massive janitor's strike ground L.A.'s business community to a halt. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Directed By
- Ken Loach
- Written By
- Paul Laverty
- Genres
- Drama
R,
- In Theaters
- May 11, 2001 Limited
- Studio
- Lions Gate Releasing
Critic Reviews
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Desson Thomson, Washington Post
There's every reason to watch Bread and Roses
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Susan Stark, Detroit News
Loach treats [the story] as a late-breaking sidebar to a narrative that essentially amounts to a tract on the glories of unskilled trade unionism.
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Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press
Isn't a bad movie, just a painfully obvious one.
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Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee
Loach ... has made his most appealing and involving movie to date with the touching, naturalistic Bread and Roses.
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Jay Carr, Boston Globe
As didactic as it sometimes gets, its heart is always bigger than its ideology.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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Adrien Brody
as Sam
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Elpidia Carrillo
as Rosa
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Frankie Davila
as Luis
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George Lopez
as Perez
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Jack McGee
as Bert
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Ron Perlman
as Himself
- Pilar Padilla
- Alonso Chavez
- Benicio Del Toro
- Stephanie Zimbalist
- Stuart Gordon
- Tim Roth
- Frank Davila
- Monica Rivas
