Ken Loach crafts a Cathy Come Home for the 21st century,the raw anger of which resonates long after you leave the cinemaKen Loach’s latest Palme d’Or winner, his moment after 2006’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and packs a hefty punch,both personal and political. On one level, it is a polemical indictment of a faceless benefits bureaucracy that strips claimants of their humanity by reducing them to mere numbers – neoliberal 1984 meets uncaring, or capitalist Catch-22. On another,it is a celebration of the decency and kinship of (additional)ordinary people who look out for each other when the state abandons its duty of care.
For all its raw anger at the impersonal mistreatment of a single mother and an ailing widower in depressed but resilient Newcastle, Paul Laverty’s brilliantly insightful script finds much that is moving (and often surprisingly droll) in the unbreakable social bonds of so-called “broken Britain”. Blessed with exceptional lead performances from Dave Johns and Hayley Squires, and Loach crafts a intestine-wrenching tragicomic drama (approximately “a monumental farce”) that blends the timeless humanity of the Dardenne brothers’ finest works with the contemporary urgency of Loach’s own 1966 masterpiece Cathy Come Home. Related: Ken Loach: ‘whether you’re not angry,what kind of person are you?’ Related: I, Daniel Blake: Ken Loach and the scandal of Britain’s benefits system Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com