The latest release from British working-class hero Ken Loach
is a bleak offering. It’s a portrait of a family in the midst of financial and
personal crisis, primarily through Kris Hitchen’s humbling turn as a father who
has just started a job as a white van man delivering packages. It carries
next-to-no flash and about as humdrum as a release can get these days, and yet
it carries an emotional intensity that makes for one of the most crushing films
of the year.
Through its depiction of the British gig economy, where job
security and consistent contracts take the backseat to what shortens the bottom
line, it shows the working-class as being part of a larger operation seemingly
tailor-made to crush men’s souls. And with Ken Loach’s recurring insistence on hiring
non-professional actors that pops up again here, it aims for sombre realism that makes its
more pointed statements hit that much harder. From Hitchen’s Ricky and his
working conditions, right down to the piss bottle, to how the 2008 financial
crisis put him in this position, to how much of a fucking bastard his boss is…
seriously, Ross Brewster as Maloney is an easy pick for villain of the year,
and his consistent dehumanising of those under his employ adds to the horror of
it all.
But it doesn’t stop at just the effects on the individual;
it looks at how that worker’s mentality affects the home as well.
Ricky’s 14-hour-a-day job puts intense strain on his family unit, ranging from
having to sell the family car to get his van which makes his wife Abbie (Debbie
Honeywood)’s job that much harder, to how their respective absences have a disruptive
effect on their children. And again, the intent for realism in the performances
really helps sell it. Whether the family are all yelling at each other or
enjoying those precious few moments they can actually spent together as
a family, every emotional punch lands right on the mark.
Where the film’s look at the effects of capitalist
workaholism turns an even more depressing corner is how it presents this
family, one that represents millions of others on a scale that stretches far
beyond the confines of Great Britain, as one of the better case
scenarios. As terrible as their circumstances end up, and as beaten-down as
they get, at least they still have familial support through it all, sidelined
as it may end up being. As we see Abbie at her job, the wider effects of the
work-first-and-foremost mindset show through as her role as a carer has her
encountering the elderly and the disabled, who have basically been left to fend
for themselves. Even those who aren’t even able to work can’t exist with their
dignity intact.
And yet, even with all that said, none of it really explains
why this film affected me as much as it did. Like, to the point where I was
basically holding back tears consistently from leaving the cinema to arriving
home to write this review. What did that for me is when it suddenly dawned on
me that the mentality at the film’s core, where all semblance of individual
need comes second to the needs of the corporate… I’m just as guilty of it with
these reviews.
More than a few times, I’ve found myself actively putting my
own body and mind at risk just to write these things, and I'm not talking 'bad movies are torture' hyperbole. That Edgar Wright interview I did for FilmInk that was basically my first real chance to work on
the semi-professional level? That was done in-between stints at the hospital
for back problems, and I was in fucking agony throughout. But because I take
this work that damn seriously, I pressed on. Hell, it even happened earlier
this month. Long story short, because the pharmacies close during the
Christmas/Boxing Day gap and I need certain meds to function, I found myself in
a state of withdrawal and a fit of nausea that felt like I was dying. And what
did I do in that compromised state? I went out and watched Cats in the cinema,
because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to put out the two reviews for
that day.
It’s rather small potatoes compared to needing to do this
shit just to keep a roof over my head, but there’s a reason I’m bringing any of
this up. That mindset, that workaholic “the job is more important than my own
health” attitude that capitalist systems instil in people, is poisonous. It can
warp a person’s priorities so badly that, if left unchecked, it can make them
disregard all of the other things they need in their life. Not only
that, but once a person is in that headspace that they view their own wellbeing
as being lesser than the whims of their employers, they’re in a position of
vulnerability that can be exploited for even more ill-gotten gains.
As far as critiques on what capitalism does to the human
spirit, this is easily one of the most depressing in recent years, bulked by
the fact that Loach isn’t doing this to provide any easy answers, or really any
answers at all. He just presents the events as they are, tempering his fierce
socio-political fire with undeniable human emotionality, and it must’ve struck a raw nerve if it got me to actually admit to my own workaholic
instincts, and for a job I’ve been doing for years at a deficit at that. I
can’t promise that you’ll have a good time if you decide to watch this, but
with how incredibly vital its message is, I can at least promise that it’s a
film that needs to be watched.
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