This is too rare a film –
authentic, political, personal,
and gut-wrenching – about
Britain today. Sorry We Missed
You is a wake-up call about
the shift in power from
workers to company bosses
and shareholders; about how
UK companies control work- hours, intensity of work,
pay – and how it damages
us. Loach’s previous feature
film, I, Daniel Blake, showed
the calculated severity of the
so-called ‘benefits’ system.
This new one shows us the
traps of the ‘gig’ economy –
a sugar-coated misnomer if
there ever was one. Popstars
do gigs. Self-employed deliv-
ery drivers don’t. Zero-hours
careworkers don’t. They’re
underpaid, and work long
hours with little recognition.
Loach’s film shows the impact
on a hard-working, exhausted
couple and their two school-
age children.
Abby’s first care appoint-
ment is at 7 am, her last at 9.30
pm. She keeps in touch with
her kids by phone and uses the
bus since she has sold her car
for a deposit on a delivery van.
She and partner Ricky think
he can earn enough as a DPF
(Deliver Parcels Faster!) fran-
chisee to get a mortgage. At
first, it seems he can, but then
their son Seb gets into trouble
at school; then with the police.
Ricky needs time off – but he’s
contracted to deliver daily,
and hidden contractual costs
kick in.
This study of loving parents
under pressure is told with an
irony, humour and realism
that builds to open-ended, but
tremendously powerful, final
scenes. It’s superbly made and
acted – not least the role of the
sweet-natured, perceptive and
anxious daughter, Liza. Go see
it – and persuade your friends
to. MLThis gripping, revealing and
relevant drama, about what
may seem the driest of topics- the writing and publication
of an official report – is any-
thing but dry. It’s about the
Central Intelligence Agency’s
post-9/11 use of ‘enhanced
interrogation’. The opening
credits are plainer, blazon-
ing ‘The Torture Report’, the
bar through the ‘Torture’ sig-
nalling the conflict that’s the
focus of the film.
On one side: the CIA and
the Republican Party who
want to cover up the CIA’s
brutal, unintelligent, inef-
fective use of torture. On the
other: the report’s civil-service
author, one Daniel Jones, and
the Democrat-chaired Senate
Intelligence Committee who
have commissioned the report,
and may, or may not, decide to
publish it.
We follow, from his appoint-
ment, Jones’s staggering, obses-
sive, five-year commitment to
research and write the 7,000-
page document, then to see
through its publication. And it
shows, without embellishment
or glamour, how American
politics works at the highest
levels. The CIA is revealed as
duplicitous and stupid, the
Republicans as duplicitous
and short-termist. Democrat
committee members come
out of it well, as, eventually,
does chair Diane Feinstein.
‘Non-partisan’ US president
Barack Obama does not.
Burns’s factual, focused
script and direction are spot
on. Adam Driver subtly gets
the honest, committed Jones.
Annette Benning perfectly
pitches the coiffured, cautious
but steely Feinstein. It’s a film
about exceptional people –
and how, exceptionally, we are
privy to the machinations of
power. MLThe Report
directed and written by Scott Z Burns
120 minutes
+++++Sorry We Missed You
directed by Ken Loach, written by Paul Lavery
100 minutes
+++++FILM
MIXED MEDIA78 NEW INTERNATIONALIST