Sorry We Missed You. (12A.)
Directed by Ken Loach.
Starring Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone, Katie Proctor, Charlie Richmond and Ross Brewster. 101 mins.
This is a film that very effectively illustrates how a decent family man is ground down working as a delivery driver on a zero-hours contract. In sympathy with its characters, the misery of its subject matter has beaten down most of the spirit you usually find in Ken Loach films.
The film makes its points most clearly in its opening scene. Here life long grafter Ricky (Hitchins) has the exciting job opportunity with PDF (Parcels Delivered Faster) explained to him by Maloney (Brewster.) The dialogue is filled with all manner of duplicitous modern euphemisms. Ricky is informed that he will work With the company not For them, as an independent self-employed franchisee. This is a chance to be his own boss. It's about choice but that doesn't include the choice of taking a holiday, being sick, taking breaks or working less than 14 hours a day. He's a self-employed man whose every moment is tracked and controlled by the company he doesn't work for.
Of course, the people being missed are his own family. While he's out working his wife (Honeywood) is working from 7.30 in the morning to 9.00 at night as a carer, but only being paid for the time she is with her “clients” and their two children are left on their own till their parents come home exhausted in the evening. As one of them comments, “Whatever happened to the eight hour day?”
The obscenities of the gig economy – being fined for missing work, being sanctioned for any failures – are such hideous sores on society that it was something Loach and long-time collaborator screenwriter Paul Laverty had to address, but judged solely as a film drama it doesn't engage in the way that their best films do. Loach again mixes professional actors with first-timers and among the adults you'd struggle to work out which were which. But, though the performances are fine, they don't have the spark that Dave Johns and Hayley Squires had in his Cannes-winning previous film, I, Daniel Blake. The way the script is constructed all the characters can do is struggle and suffer.
Directed by Ken Loach.
Starring Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone, Katie Proctor, Charlie Richmond and Ross Brewster. 101 mins.
This is a film that very effectively illustrates how a decent family man is ground down working as a delivery driver on a zero-hours contract. In sympathy with its characters, the misery of its subject matter has beaten down most of the spirit you usually find in Ken Loach films.
The film makes its points most clearly in its opening scene. Here life long grafter Ricky (Hitchins) has the exciting job opportunity with PDF (Parcels Delivered Faster) explained to him by Maloney (Brewster.) The dialogue is filled with all manner of duplicitous modern euphemisms. Ricky is informed that he will work With the company not For them, as an independent self-employed franchisee. This is a chance to be his own boss. It's about choice but that doesn't include the choice of taking a holiday, being sick, taking breaks or working less than 14 hours a day. He's a self-employed man whose every moment is tracked and controlled by the company he doesn't work for.
Of course, the people being missed are his own family. While he's out working his wife (Honeywood) is working from 7.30 in the morning to 9.00 at night as a carer, but only being paid for the time she is with her “clients” and their two children are left on their own till their parents come home exhausted in the evening. As one of them comments, “Whatever happened to the eight hour day?”
The obscenities of the gig economy – being fined for missing work, being sanctioned for any failures – are such hideous sores on society that it was something Loach and long-time collaborator screenwriter Paul Laverty had to address, but judged solely as a film drama it doesn't engage in the way that their best films do. Loach again mixes professional actors with first-timers and among the adults you'd struggle to work out which were which. But, though the performances are fine, they don't have the spark that Dave Johns and Hayley Squires had in his Cannes-winning previous film, I, Daniel Blake. The way the script is constructed all the characters can do is struggle and suffer.
