Moonlighting
Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
Written by Jerzy Skolimowski
1982/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube
Nowak: I can speak their language, this is why the boss chose for me for the job. But I don’t know what they really mean.
A decent film about strangers in a strange land.
The setting is London in December of 1981. A group of four Poles arrives at Heathrow in London. The only one of them that can speak English is Nowak (Jeremy Irons). The real purpose of the trip is to completely renovate a flat owned by their “boss”. It is arduous work on an extremely tight deadline and Nowak is a strict taskmaster. The benefit to the owner is a job done at half the going rate in Britain. At the same time, the workers will receive a year’s worth of salary for a month’s work. The entire enterprise is illegal so they must not draw attention to themselves. All the men look forward to Sundays when they can speak to their spouses back in Warsaw.
Shortly after the men arrive, the authorities impose martial law in Poland in an attempt to quash the Solidarity movement. When Nowak finds out about this, he goes to great lengths to hide the truth from the workers. This is difficult because telephone communication is blocked. And Nowak is running out of money to feed the group and purchase supplies for the work. So he tries his hand at shoplifting.
Jeremy Irons is always good and I appreciated his failure even to attempt a Polish accent. I think the movie had a political message. It just lacked the energy to get it across. I had expected to love it but it dragged for me at only 97 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5KlGsYyrqE
