Bread and Roses

British director Ken Loach is known for shading universal social, political and economical issues with hand-held-camera realism, left-wing principles and personal intimacy. He applies these sensibilities to this bittersweet drama with moderate success as the Justice for Janitors cause in Los Angeles struggles to unionize custodians and minority workers who must choose between security and solidarity, the status quo and an unknown future. The intermittent petals of truth (“Uniforms make us invisible,” says one disgruntled custodian) reminded me that Norma Rae, Matewan and El Norte have been here before with more resonant passion and less didactic spillage.