Movie Review: Sorry We Missed You

Sorry We Missed You **** / *****

Directed by: Ken Loach.

Written by: Paul Laverty.

Starring: Kris Hitchen (Ricky), Debbie Honeywood (Abbie), Rhys Stone (Seb), Katie Proctor (Liza Jae), Ross Brewster (Maloney), Charlie Richmond (Henry), Julian Ions (Freddie), Sheila Dunkerley (Rosie), Maxie Peters (Robert), Christopher John Slater (Ben), Heather Wood (Mollie), Albert Dumba (Harpoon), Natalia Stonebanks (Roz), Jordan Collard (Dodge), Dave Turner (Magpie).

 

Ken Loach has made a career of making movies about the losers of capitalism – the ones left behind or exploited by a system designed to make a lot of money for a few people, and leaves the rest of us poorer. Many of those films. Paul Laverty has been writing those films for Loach dating back nearly 25 years now, and together, they have created quite a long resume of films about the underclass in Britain. At their best, they expose something deep and dark – and come the closest modern films to gets to the post-war Italian neo-realists films of Vittorio De Sica, and others. Often though, they feel like route and by the numbers – as if Laverty and Loach find the issue they want to explore first, and then shoehorn in a story that they can make work. Despite the fact that it won the Palme D’or a few years ago (the second Loach/Laverty film to do so), I, Daniel Blake felt like that a few years ago. Their latest however, Sorry We Missed You, feels vital and alive – and really is one of their best, and certainly their best since at least The Wind That Shakes the Barely (2006 – which was the other film to win the Palme).

 

Kris Hitchen stars in the film as Ricky. He’s married to Abbie (Debbie Honeywood), who works as a homecare work for seniors and the disabled – and doesn’t get paid nearly enough for what she does, and the long hours she has to keep. They have a teenage son – Seb (Rhys Stone), drifting down the wrong path, and a younger daughter, Lisa Jae (Katie Proctor), who just wants the family to be happy again. Ricky has worked all kinds of construction jobs over the years – but is tired of it. He wants something of his own. So he ends up signing up with a package delivery service (think Amazon) as a driver. They are not employees – but independent contractors (that means, no guaranteed pay, not benefits, no time off, etc.) You can rent the truck from the company if you want – but that eats away a lot of your daily profit. So Ricky buys a truck he cannot really afford, thinking it will be better in the long run for him. He then starts having to keep up an insane route, which makes him work longer hours than ever before, for a foreman Maloney (Ross Brewster), who looks for any reason he can to ding you – mounting up fines and penalties, that of course, eat into your pay. The company is making a fortune of course – but Ricky cannot get ahead.

 

Loach depicts this family with great sensitivity, and great humanity. They are all doing their part to try and get by – maybe even trying to get ahead. Seb is the rebel – hanging out with his friends, who spend more time doing graffiti than attending school, which will end up hurting the family more and more as the movie goes along. But Seb isn’t doing all of this to be selfish – he’s doing it because he sees no future for himself. He can go to school, but there will be no jobs for him when he gets out, and he’ll be in mountains of debt. So he can end up working like his dad has done, and he’s miserable. Hitchen is great as Ricky – who just gets up every morning, and trudges into work, goes on his route, and tries to make it through to the next day. Even his few brief moments of joy – like the weekend day he takes Lisa Jae with him, are undermined, because he’s not allowed to bring her, and gets in trouble. He is essentially stuck on a hamster wheel – running and running to keep up, if he stops, he’ll be flung off. Abbie is the same – Ricky sold her car to buy the truck, so now she has to take the bus everywhere. She sees people who are neglected and forgotten about by their own families – and isn’t given enough time to properly care for them. But she has to clock in and clock out on time – no overtime allowed.

 

Sorry We Missed You ends up being one of the great depictions of the gig economy we’ve seen on film so far. It is about the disconnect between those doing the work, and those making the decisions (and the money). Maloney is the films de facto villain – but even he really isn’t to blame. He’s just another cog in the machine. If he has to monitor all the drivers to make sure they’re doing what they should be, someone else is monitoring all the depots like his, to make sure he’s doing what he has to. Everyone has to keep running, or get left behind. Loach can sometimes lay things on too thick, or go too far with speeches, or a parade of misery. Here, he gets the balance just right.