*My review of Sorry We Missed You was originally published by Film Inquiry. Click here to read the original post and check out more great reviews from this awesome site!*
One of my favorite trends at Film Fest 919 is getting the chance to see films from iconic directors who I’m relatively unfamiliar with, despite their revered status as masters of the medium. Last year, it was Olivier Assayas‘ Non-Fiction, which prompted me to explore more of the French director’s incredible work. This year, the surprise of the festival was British filmmaker Ken Loach‘s Sorry We Missed You, a title I included in my schedule simply because it filled a nice open slot. I must admit, I had minimal expectations, especially with the muted Cannes reception. Yet Loach‘s film more than earns your attention as a viewer, providing a moving, detailed, and tragic portrait of a family suffering under the weight of an economy stacked against them. It’s quite brilliant, and it deserves a whole lot more attention than it’s currently getting.
Sorry We Missed You follows Ricky Turner (Kris Hitchen), a working-class man who believes he’s finally struck gold with a new opportunity. Over the years, Ricky has worked every job imaginable, and now, he’s jumping at the chance to earn a piece of his own business. But it’s not exactly a traditional arrangement—he signs a deal with an Amazon-esque package delivery service, where he gets to own the van and deliver the parcels, despite still being beholden to the whims of a dictatorial boss (Ross Brewster, a standout as a human being of unparalleled awfulness). Ricky sees this as a big money-making opportunity, even though he’ll have to spend a large sum of money on a van and work long, grueling hours.
Ricky’s major career change has a significant effect on everyone else in his family. Abbie (Debbie Honeywood), Ricky’s beloved wife and best friend, sells her car to provide money for the van; she starts taking the bus to her job as a senior care specialist. But Ricky’s intense dedication to his new job has even greater ramifications on his children, both of whom are going through a rough period. Seb (Rhys Stone) is a gifted and passionate artist, but he spends most of his days ditching school, running around the streets of Newcastle with his graffiti-obsessed friends. Meanwhile, Liza Jane (Katie Proctor), Ricky and Abbie’s youngest daughter, needs her parents more than ever, at a time when they really can’t be there for her.
This is a truly bleak film. Yet of all the recent family melodramas, Sorry We Missed You is the least cinematic and, perhaps, the most effective in landing its dramatic punches. While Loach‘s style of working-class realism never spices up the action with dramatic camerawork or a tug-on-the-heartstrings musical score, the grim trajectory of the Turner family’s domestic life from relative stability to disaster is moving enough on its own. Ricky and Abbie are good, kind-hearted, and thoroughly likable people, and they share a number of happy moments with their children. Unfortunately, the film’s depicted economic situation is a bomb waiting to explode at the first sign of trouble: we know this won’t end well.
Loach‘s portrait of quiet domesticity inevitably makes the family’s deterioration into stress, anger, and even violence that much more upsetting. These characters don’t deserve their given fate, and even their actions under pressure feel more involuntarily than detestable. Sorry We Missed You is, by design, an infuriating film, and it’s difficult not to be angry at the brutal realization that its conclusion is a stark reality for many. Its maddening depiction of corporate bureaucracy is enough to make anyone’s blood boil, and its sympathetic portrait of four people buckling under pressure is enough to break your heart. Loach‘s unity of these opposing emotional states is nothing short of genius.
At a festival that was seemingly preoccupied by two ideas—the viciousness of contemporary capitalism and the modern family’s collapse into crisis—Sorry We Missed You is the ultimate combination of those vital concepts. The results are absolutely shattering.
THE FINAL GRADE: A (9.2/10)
One of my favorite trends at Film Fest 919 is getting the chance to see films from iconic directors who I’m relatively unfamiliar with, despite their revered status as masters of the medium. Last year, it was Olivier Assayas‘ Non-Fiction, which prompted me to explore more of the French director’s incredible work. This year, the surprise of the festival was British filmmaker Ken Loach‘s Sorry We Missed You, a title I included in my schedule simply because it filled a nice open slot. I must admit, I had minimal expectations, especially with the muted Cannes reception. Yet Loach‘s film more than earns your attention as a viewer, providing a moving, detailed, and tragic portrait of a family suffering under the weight of an economy stacked against them. It’s quite brilliant, and it deserves a whole lot more attention than it’s currently getting.
Sorry We Missed You follows Ricky Turner (Kris Hitchen), a working-class man who believes he’s finally struck gold with a new opportunity. Over the years, Ricky has worked every job imaginable, and now, he’s jumping at the chance to earn a piece of his own business. But it’s not exactly a traditional arrangement—he signs a deal with an Amazon-esque package delivery service, where he gets to own the van and deliver the parcels, despite still being beholden to the whims of a dictatorial boss (Ross Brewster, a standout as a human being of unparalleled awfulness). Ricky sees this as a big money-making opportunity, even though he’ll have to spend a large sum of money on a van and work long, grueling hours.
Ricky’s major career change has a significant effect on everyone else in his family. Abbie (Debbie Honeywood), Ricky’s beloved wife and best friend, sells her car to provide money for the van; she starts taking the bus to her job as a senior care specialist. But Ricky’s intense dedication to his new job has even greater ramifications on his children, both of whom are going through a rough period. Seb (Rhys Stone) is a gifted and passionate artist, but he spends most of his days ditching school, running around the streets of Newcastle with his graffiti-obsessed friends. Meanwhile, Liza Jane (Katie Proctor), Ricky and Abbie’s youngest daughter, needs her parents more than ever, at a time when they really can’t be there for her.
This is a truly bleak film. Yet of all the recent family melodramas, Sorry We Missed You is the least cinematic and, perhaps, the most effective in landing its dramatic punches. While Loach‘s style of working-class realism never spices up the action with dramatic camerawork or a tug-on-the-heartstrings musical score, the grim trajectory of the Turner family’s domestic life from relative stability to disaster is moving enough on its own. Ricky and Abbie are good, kind-hearted, and thoroughly likable people, and they share a number of happy moments with their children. Unfortunately, the film’s depicted economic situation is a bomb waiting to explode at the first sign of trouble: we know this won’t end well.
Loach‘s portrait of quiet domesticity inevitably makes the family’s deterioration into stress, anger, and even violence that much more upsetting. These characters don’t deserve their given fate, and even their actions under pressure feel more involuntarily than detestable. Sorry We Missed You is, by design, an infuriating film, and it’s difficult not to be angry at the brutal realization that its conclusion is a stark reality for many. Its maddening depiction of corporate bureaucracy is enough to make anyone’s blood boil, and its sympathetic portrait of four people buckling under pressure is enough to break your heart. Loach‘s unity of these opposing emotional states is nothing short of genius.
At a festival that was seemingly preoccupied by two ideas—the viciousness of contemporary capitalism and the modern family’s collapse into crisis—Sorry We Missed You is the ultimate combination of those vital concepts. The results are absolutely shattering.
THE FINAL GRADE: A (9.2/10)
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