Image Credit : Joss Barratt
Ken Loach returns to Cannes for the first time since his superb I, Daniel Blake scooped the prestigious top prize at the festival three years ago. Sorry We Missed You is similarly themed; a social drama honing in on current hot topics that include zero hour contracts and overworked Internet delivery drivers.
Using a largely non-professional cast and a wonderfully detailed, very well-researched screenplay from frequent collaborator Paul Laverty, Loach has done it again; delivering an on-point empathetic journey into the lives of a family living hand to mouth, week to week in the north of England.
Set in Newcastle, Sorry We Missed You revolves around the Turner family. Mother Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) is a health care worker in the community, one employed on a zero-hour contract which, while giving something of a flexibility in the hours she puts in, has a downside in that work is never guaranteed, and things like holidays and gaps in her work day go unpaid. Husband Ricky (Kris Hitchen) is a former builder who, after struggling to find work, goes into the independent delivery business, a new job where he will effectively be ‘self-employed.’ To set-up shop he must commit to working six days a week, often for 14 hours a day, and buy his own van, something he does by selling Abbie’s car. There’s also their two children – Katie Proctor as Liza Jane, and Rhys Stone as Seb, a teenager who is going off the rails in a big way. Sorry We Missed You focuses on the family’s struggles with making ends meet in a relentless modern society hell-bent on quick, next-day delivery times, corporations maximising profits and the impact that has on families struggling on a financial and an altogether personal level.
Related: I, Daniel Blake review
It is, of course, typical Ken Loach territory. While very different to his last offering, which made larger brush-strokes across a broader canvas, Sorry We Missed You is much more focussed, though expertly detailed. The performances are very natural, the four members of the family at the heart of the narrative expertly delivered. The stand-outs are Hitchen’s father at breaking point, one who clearly wants the best for his family, but one who is struggling under the constant pressure. The other is Proctor as the couple’s youngest Liza Jane – the character who is potentially the glue that is holding the family together. Honeywood has the film’s air-punching moment towards the end though, the mother reaching boiling point and screaming into a phone at Ricky’s despicable, target-driven dictator boss Maloney (Ross Brewster).
Sorry We Missed You is urgent, moving, often relatable, gut-wrenching, and anger-inducing. Sincerely one of Loach’s best in a career that has spanned six decades. It will split audiences like all good cinemas does, and indeed should, but more importantly, will also spark conversation in the auditoriums and might just question how much we conduct our lives in this ever-changing, more demanding modern world. Very powerful stuff.
Sorry We Missed You was reviewed at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.
