Raining Stones

Happy qualities such as wit and resilience can be bred by poverty, but sadness inevitably shows through the worn spots. Life's many holes are the subject of Raining Stones, Ken Loach's moving story of hard times in the north of England. Bob Williams (Bruce Jones) tries every desperate means to give his young daughter (Gemma Phoenix) the First Communion she deserves. This family is the perfect vehicle for Loach's hardscrabble realism, neither bleak nor sentimental. The film begins with deadpan humor and ends at the only redemption available to the unfortunate, persuasively arguing for perfect compassion toward imperfect humanity. A-