Sorry We Missed You ★★★½
MY favourite film of 2016 was Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake.
The veteran British director’s searing attack on his country’s disdainful treatment of the poor and underprivileged delivered a powerful punch to the gut.
Loach has been making this kind of social commentary and skewering the British Government in the process since the 1960s and I admit it hasn’t always been my cup of tea.
But I, Daniel Blake was one of his best, almost painful to watch in its examination of people whose dignity and humanity is stripped away by the worst indifferences of bureacracy and authority.
Loach’s next film and his most recent, 2019’s Sorry We Missed You, explores the same themes and, while still thought-provoking story-telling, doesn’t quite have I, Daniel Blake’s emotional impact.
Why, I’m not quite sure. Perhaps it’s the script which seems to labour the point and repeat certain moments, despite the film’s relatively brief running time of just over 90 minutes.
We get to know main character Ricky and something of his relationship with his children, but not to extent of Daniel Blake where Loach forced us deep into the character’s frustrated soul.
Ricky is a working-class hero; not the sharpest tool in the shed and, occasionally, too hot-headed for his own good, but he is honest as the day is long and always seems to have the best interests of his family at heart.
With the recession biting and employers becoming more ruthless Ricky takes the risky decision to take on extra debt with a new, reliable van to help him rise above the pack at a private courier firm.
But what he hasn’t counted on is the company’s unwavering commitment to hard economics that forces drivers to take on more independent debt and responsibility amidst accelerating deadlines and unsympathetic responses to any lapses in helping create profit.
As well as mounting pressure at work from bosses, fellow workers and customers, Ricky and his wife are forced to deal with precarious finances and a teenage son who cannot understand the nature of their predicament and questions his father’s value as a providor.
Ricky’s work situation is mirrored by his wife Abbie’s constant efforts to rush from one house to another as a carer of the elderly and disabled trying to manage the time and budget constraints forced upon her.
The tears, frustration and anger that arise in both characters is completely authentic and benefits greatly from the performances of Kris Hitchen and Debbie Honeywood.
But just when you are completely immersed in their plight, Loach stops them and us in our tracks, perhaps purposely as he suspects the audience’s empathy will end, unfortunately, when they leave the cinema, meaning Loach must continue making his films and keeping society on notice.