Sorry We Missed You is a movie in the genre of drama directed by Ken Loach, well known for directing Kes (1969), Riff-Raff (1991) and, more recently, Sorry We Missed You (2019). Ken Loach, 84, is British director of 27 movies throughout his career. In most of his movies he criticises social ideology and tackles problems experienced in everyday society, such as homelessness. In Sorry We Missed You he targets the issue of poverty, overwork and the way organisations treat their staff.
Sorry We Missed You is about a family's struggle to escape from poverty. The father was hard financially of the 2008 global financial crash and found himself in extreme debt. Because of this, he has to take whatever work he could get and now works as a delivery driver to earn money for his family. He buys a new van and starts his own independent delivery service. He struggles at first due to the intensity of the job and how he hardly has any time with his family, which is a big part of his life. The film shows the audience that the family is strong, however, the father and mother are both working long hours in unrewarding jobs and are tested to their limit, while pulled in different directions for their jobs, family life and their relationship. This story is partly dedicated to Don Lane, a DPD courier who died in 2018 after failing to take care of his health because he was so focused on working as many hours as possible through the Christmas period. He missed multiple hospital appointments so that he could carry on working in a desperate attempt to provide for himself and his family. This relates to Sorry We Missed You as the father in the movie experienced similar issues – he was so focused on working and trying to provide for his family that he missed out on many chances to be with his family and spend quality time with them. As much as this helped his family, they did not really appreciate his efforts as much as he expected them. This could be because they would have preferred to have the time with him.
The film does not feature any big movie stars, which follows a pattern of many Ken Loach films. Loach believes that using less well known actors makes it easier for the audience to relate to the characters in the movie. as It makes it more believable to see associate these unknown actors with the everyday person, struggling in life and finding it hard to get a grip of everyday lives. The movie also takes an underhand dig at large courier companies such as DPD and UPS and how they treat their employees as though they are just machines, with no respect for their personal situations. Sorry We Missed You, is carries the message to encourage these organisations to think about how they treat their workers and to put a limit on how many hours they can work before they have to take a break. Not like in the case of Don Lane, where he had been given a £150 fine when he missed work to attend his type 1 diabetes doctors appointment, the lack of treatment for which ended up being the reason for his death. Overall this movie carries many important messages, ranging from the importance of family life and relationships, to taking care of our health and to challenging how bug business care for their workers.
No comments:
Post a Comment