Bread and Roses

Maya, a young Mexican woman, crosses into the United States and settles in Los Angeles, where her older sister Rosa has lived for years. Rosa helps her find work cleaning offices, a job that is better paid than most work available to immigrants but comes with harsh treatment from supervisors and the constant threat of deportation. When Maya meets Sam Shapiro, a union organiser, she becomes drawn to the idea of demanding better conditions. Rosa is reluctant to take that risk, since she cannot afford to lose the income her family depends on, and the disagreement drives a wedge between the sisters.

Ken Loach directed the film, the seventh of the twenty features listed for him and the one that followed Riff-Raff and preceded The Navigators. Paul Laverty wrote the screenplay and Rebecca O'Brien produced. Pilar Padilla plays Maya, Adrien Brody plays Sam Shapiro, and Jack McGee, Monica Rivas, Frankie Davila and Lillian Hurst appear alongside them. The production, made across Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain with backing from Tornasol Films, Road Movies, Parallax Pictures and Alta Films, had a budget of six million dollars.

On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 7 out of 10 from roughly 6,400 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.3 from about 143 votes, a smaller sample that reflects its more limited reach there.