Direction: Ken Loach
Country: UK
British director Ken Loach, an advocate of hyper-realistic cinema (Riff Raff; My Name is Joe; I, Daniel Blake), has always something pertinent to say through stories that are usually thoughtfully penned by his longtime associate Paul Laverty. That’s the case of Sorry We Missed You, a pungent family drama directly linked to the British working class theme, a recurrent topic in the filmmaker's body of work.
Willing to establish himself as a self-employed delivery driver for a franchising company, Ricky Turner (Kris Hitchen), a father of two, sells his wife’s old car and buys a new van. Through this move, he expects to bring more income, but makes things difficult for the good-hearted Abbie (newcomer Debbie Honeywood), who now works as a home-attendant after losing her job in the 2008 financial crash. Besides the daily predicaments related to demanding contract jobs - their schedules almost don’t allow them to see each other - the couple is having a hard time with their eldest son, Seb (Rhys Stone), who keeps skipping school and behaving whether indifferently or confrontationally whenever called into reason.
Their desperation makes a big impact on us, and it’s easy to realize that, in order to put food on the table, they were forced to abdicate from being a normal family. The strong bonds start weakening as the hard life keeps sucking out their energies.
The title is multivalent, the storytelling keeps us hooked, the direction is uncomplicated, and the members of the cast deliver performances that are as raw, brave, and tough as the characters they play. Sorry We Missed You might not be Loach’s best film, but it’s a damn good one.
