Directed by Ken Loach (Kes (1969); The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006); I, Daniel Blake (2016); Sorry We Missed You (2019)) and starring Dave Turner (I, Daniel Blake (2016); Sorry We Missed You (2019)) and Ebla Mari (her first role).
Drama; 113 mins; 6+
Set in a former mining town in north-east England, TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) is at the heart of the community. He runs The Old Oak, a pub that has seen better times; he has a group of regulars that come in most days but they normally do little more than complain about what is happening to their town. TJ also coaches football and is seen helping a group of Syrian refugees who have arrived by coach and are being accommodated in a number of different houses.
Yara (Ebla Mari), a photographer, is one of the refugees who alights from the bus, scared and intimidated by the hostile reception they receive from many of the locals, one of whom breaks her camera. TJ shows her compassion and they strike up a friendship in the small community which has still not recovered from the mine closures, one knock-on effect of which is that house values have plummeted and many lie vacant as buyers are hard to come by.
As with his recent films I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Sorry We Missed You (2019), Ken Loach's last film (he is now 86 years old) wraps up the triology of social narrative in the north of England, showing how decent folk who want to work and contribute to society find it challenging to make ends meet.
This "call to action" shows how communities of people from different backgrounds can work together and unite for a common cause, knitting together their varied skill sets of talents into an eventual show of solidarity. However, the road there is rocky, to say the least, with prejudices, ignorance, racism and xenophobia showing through in a number of characters. The community eventually realises the similarities and commonalities between everyone's situations in an emotionally-charged and tense setting as the storyline unfolds.
Like many of his other films, it shows two fingers to the establishment, blaming it and the (socio-economic) system for the social malaise. The actors give stellar performances throughout.
Currently screening in Luxembourg at Ciné Utopia and CiNextDoor.
