A fitting Swan Song for Ken Loach

In collaboration with his regular screenwriter, Paul Laverty, Ken Loach has completed a loose trilogy around the themes of poverty and austerity with The Old Oak, a film which he has signalled will be his last. In I, Daniel Blake it was the cruelty of joblessness, in Sorry We Missed You it was the merciless gig economy. In this film he tackles a subject not only relevant to the North East, but unusually topical for Diss, as the housing of refugees in hotels, hostels and empty rental property is explored.

This film is a world-weary, polemic condemnation of the state of the nation, where Syrian refugees occupy the same disadvantaged space as the working class men that resent, rather than empathise with, them. As we’ve come to expect from Loach in his later films, he paints a picture with primary colours, but even his villains deserve sympathy as their misdirected anger spills over into actions at least some of them come to regret. Employing a large and mainly amateur ensemble cast, there is a raw authenticity to the performances on screen that puts “proper” acting to shame. The two centre characters are both outstanding. Dave Turner is painfully real as TJ, the pub owner whose life is falling apart. Ella Mari, as the Syrian photographer Yara that strikes up an unlikely friendship with him is equally convincing.

It would be fair to say that there is little in the way of humour in the movie but what it does have is heart. Unlike his previous two movies that focused on unremitting tragedy, there is a welcome seam of genuine hope running through the Old Oak, with cynicism and cruelly relegated to background noise. If this does prove to be Ken Loach’s last film, then it is fitting that it delivers this abiding message.