At the age of 82 Ken Loach presented his newest fim Sorry We Missed You at the Cannes Festival 2019, where it was nominated for de Palme d’Or. Loach builds on more than 50 years of making compassionate, social drama. I think it is a film everybody should see to help us understand how life works for many hardworking people and their families under the work place conditions of our day.  

The beauty of cinema is that you can come close. You can be drawn into private moments of people and see and feel their worries and suffering. Things we may know about as an abstract idea or an everyday condition of life suddenly get a face and become shockingly real. You can see and feel the delicacies of human relationships and the toll everyday life’s pressures take on those relationships.  

Sorry We Missed You is the story of a working class family in modern Britain. It is a story about the human cost of an economic development we are expected to accept as normal. Ricky and Abbie were victims of the 2008 economic crash which led to the crushing of their hopes to buy their own home. Now, ten years later, Ricky’s dreams to remedy this lead him to signing up to work for a delivery company as an independent contractor. ‘You don’t work for us, you work with us‘ is their slogan with the promise of freedom and earnings. The reality is that he has to buy his own van and to keep a relentless schedule of on time deliveries recorded by an ever present scanner. If not, fines are incurred. In practice, it means no time for lunch, no time for a toilet break, long long working days and no benefits belonging to ordinary employment.

Abbie is a care-taker with a zero hours-contract, paid per 15-min visit and not for travel in between. She constantly feels that her patients are neglected because of time pressure. Her mobile phone constantly calls for her attention and effort. Their family consists of a teenage son Seb and a younger sister Lisa Jane. There is compassion and love in the family, but when time and energy pressures are mounting up, patience and self-control slip away.  

Many families like Ricky and Abbie’s are struggling in neoliberal Europe. There is a new, cynical  exploitation going on that crushes families and individuals. It is a contemporary issue which is little talked about. A film does not change anything in itself, but it may help us to dialogue about the life we want to live.

Rinus, Nov 19

*image posted under fair use of copyright material in recommendation of the film

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