Review of 'Funny Cow'

Maxine Peake plays a comedian on the Northern working men's club circuit, with a narrative that flits back and forth during her life and career. It's not a happy or feelgood film, and it depicts well the environment of male violence and abuse that she grown up in. She's ultimately successful as a comic (not really a spoiler as we see this in more or less the opening sequence, in which she returns to look back at her child self) but she does so by participating in the racist, sexist, homophobic culture of the clubs - anything else would have been an ahistorical fantasy, of course. A really good film but not an entirely enjoyable one. The poster makes it look much lighter and funnier than it really is - I can't remember laughing at all.

Netflix - quite a good one, for once.