A Glaswegian bus driver falls in love with a Nicaraguan refugee, and, saving her from suicide, travels with her to Nicaragua to lay the ghosts of her violent past. Despite Robert Carlyle's busman being a rather unsympathetic character, the first half of director Ken Loach's film is a quite touching, offbeat love story, culminating in the lovers fleeing to Loch Lomond, where, after an idyllic picnic, the weather turns surly and the bus they've taken there gets stuck in the mud. The Nicaragua section is the longer one - and the poorer for it. It's difficult to see why Carla (Oyanka Cabezas) can't be taken to her former lover straight away, as she is fully aware of the state of his injuries in the war between the Contras and the Sandanistas. Reunions between old friends add nothing to the narrative, but there are one or two bursts of action and an entirely appropriate ending that returns poignancy to the tale.

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