Imdb Ranking 6.3
The movie is about ten year old Winnie Maughan, a Traveller Girl, which is translated as Pavee Lackeen in cant, which is the language of the Irish Travellers, who are also called tinkers of gypsies. Winnie lives with her and a bunch of brothers and sisters in a camper just outside of Dublin.
Winnie fights with kids at school because they call her names and gets sent home for a week. There is no running water in the camper, they use an outside hose. Winnie's Mom Rose is shopping for a new home but doesn't seem to make any progress. Rose looks like life has beaten her up pretty good. Winnie shops for clothes by breaking in to charity bins and she fishes coins out of a wishing well fountain. Winnie doen't know the year she was born in and she doesn't know when her birthday is.
A social worker, a former traveller, helps out, but Rose and the kids are being evicted. Another social worker from school comes and meets Winnie. Rose wants to get the kids out of the traveller school and in to a settled school and the social worker tries to help her out.
Winnie and some friends sniff fumes and get high. It doesn't seem like she has any chance to make it out of her depressing world. Rose gets evicted but is placed in a camper just up the road. Winnie then visits her brother in jail.
Winnie goes in to a big store and shoplifts, but a security guard catches her. She ends up talking to another social worker. Rose gets through the nights by drinking.
Filmed in video the movie has a documentary style and feel. It is an honest movie, showing the mostly dark side of the traveller life. Not much goes on, but that's how real life is. Rose, Winnie and the family are real travellers and use their real names. They are really good in their roles, in a large part because they are just playing themselves.
