Tuesday 31 December 2019

Sorry We Missed You (2019) - Movie Review



https://www.greaterthan.org/

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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