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In terms of style this film is revolutionary of the time. It could be defined as docudrama since the film is shot in a style of realism. It portrays 1960's London as a poverty stricken bed of prostitution and crime. The main female protagonist seems to always seek male approval. She leaps from one bed to another, loving each of them in much the same way as Diana does in "Darling" 1965. It is hardly an example of feminism and the Radical changes in women's liberation within the 1960's. It does, however, possess a view of hope through all the grit. Dave shows how even a criminal can be loving, gentle and kind. The film offers the audience a 2 hour exploration into the lives of the criminals in London at the time. It challenges the classic Hollywood narrative of peace, disruption and resolution. The narrative structure seems to float along with very little climaxs. This gives the feeling of realism, which many people may find dull or boring. Don't expect your Hollywood Blockbuster. You will find a challenging Independant British film, documenting the feelings of the 1960s in an innovative and unconventional way.

Swinging London of myth, was for most at the time, a fantasy. It involved a small number of people, in a small area of the city, for a short time. But as many of those who were of this group, went on and maintained long careers in film, TV, Arts and literature/journalism, it's effect and scope was and has been much magnified.

Trust Ken Loach (who else?) to shine a light in the London of the mid/late 60's' for many people, was the reality. Not just the criminal element either.

Loach after all had form here, with his groundbreaking TV plays such a 'Up The Junction' and 'Cathy Come Home'. Showing the darker side of London that was then, still, an industrial city in parts.

Carol White, as lead Joy, had also been in those Loach films, she was a working class Julie Christie and carried off the role of this troubled young woman with aplomb.

White really was a fine actress, sadly like the roles which made her famous with Loach, the real woman was as troubled. Not due to poverty, a different kind of trouble, the numerous affairs, the decline in her career, to die from alcohol abuse at just 48 far from her London roots. It does change you way you view Poor Cow with this knowledge.

Terence Stamp as Dave is excellent - though such was his stardom by then he would turn up for filming in a Rolls Royce! The notorious John Blindon (surely the most stark example of Loach's use of 'real' people who often had the same lives as they acted on screen), struggles as an actor in his first role, though again, with the knowledge of the real Blindon this is less noticeable.

The Loach 60's standards of lots of sequences of real life, lots of cameo characters, loose plotting, are much in evidence.

This is not a film for everyone, if you think you'll see another classic British gangster film, you'll be disappointed. But this was a radical, daring, atmospheric film, more of historic interest than greatly entertaining, worth a look.

Not a film of entertainment, but of real lives & limited ambition for the working class in 60's. Enjoyable because of my upbringing, not sure it'd work for most people. Typical Loach. Full of TV actors/actresses of 70's/80's/90's.

Beginning with an eye-watering sequence depicting the birth of Carol White's baby boy. Thanks to director 'Kenneth' (as he was then billed) Loach's restless camerawork (punctuated by Godardian captions) the sixties here sways rather than swings in a film that manages to encompass nearly a century of British film history through the presence in the same picture of both Wally Patch and Malcolm MacDowall (not to mention future sitcom stars Kate Williams and Anna Karen); and it's apt that over thirty years later scenes from this of the young and saturnine Terence Stamp strumming his guitar were employed as flashbacks in 'The Limey' (1999).

Although it didn't seem like it at the time, we're now nearly twice as far from the sixties as the sixties were from the thirties. Life at the bottom of the heap remains as bleak in the twenty-first century as ever, and continues (doubtless to no one's regret more than Loach himself) to provide him with plenty of material. In his eighties he doesn't seem able to retire just yet.

Loach's film attempts to depict the sorry life of Joy, a young woman involved in the shady world of criminals and petty crime. How sorry one can feel for Joy is debatable as it is a life she has freely become associated with, first through her marriage to Tom and later, when Tom is imprisoned, through her relationship with his mate, Dave. What is so interesting about the film is the settings, Loach's realistic style and the naturalness of the key performances. Having an almost documentary feel about it - the (possibly unintentional) intrusion of the boom mike in one scene adds to this style. Also the street scenes of the kids playing in an alley comparable to a "20 yard toilet" could have been filmed in any run-down working class tenement block of the sixties. The film itself had a raw energy, especially when Joy is searching for her son amongst the demolished houses. Loach manages to present a realistic portrayal of working class urban life during 60's Britain which is well worth a look at.