The Old Oak (2023)
Country: GB/FR/BEL
Technical: col 113m
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Dave Turner, Ebla Mari, Trevor Fox
Synopsis:
2016, and a village in Co. Durham is host to an influx of Syrian refugees, while the landlord and local pub are both hanging on to life. Can the community open its doors and bond with the 'foreigner', or will it succumb to the hostile negativity of its once united pit workers?
Review:
Loach and his long time collaborator, Paul Laverty, ought to have hit the mother lode with this subject matter - Brexit feelings high, underprivileged have-nothings left on the scrap heap with more in common than they know - but they somehow blow it. Not that some scenes don't work, and it says plenty of things that need saying, but Laverty's ear for dialogue seems to have failed him, as has the master's knack at coaxing believable performances from his non-professional cast. Yara's soliloquy in Durham cathedral hits something like a top note, pitched between hope and despair, but T-J's counterpart speech in the pub is over-pointed and has a ring of defeat which the protracted flowers of respect scene matches in hollowness. A pity, it is a film with its heart in the right place, even if the trailer was better.
Country: GB/FR/BEL
Technical: col 113m
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Dave Turner, Ebla Mari, Trevor Fox
Synopsis:
2016, and a village in Co. Durham is host to an influx of Syrian refugees, while the landlord and local pub are both hanging on to life. Can the community open its doors and bond with the 'foreigner', or will it succumb to the hostile negativity of its once united pit workers?
Review:
Loach and his long time collaborator, Paul Laverty, ought to have hit the mother lode with this subject matter - Brexit feelings high, underprivileged have-nothings left on the scrap heap with more in common than they know - but they somehow blow it. Not that some scenes don't work, and it says plenty of things that need saying, but Laverty's ear for dialogue seems to have failed him, as has the master's knack at coaxing believable performances from his non-professional cast. Yara's soliloquy in Durham cathedral hits something like a top note, pitched between hope and despair, but T-J's counterpart speech in the pub is over-pointed and has a ring of defeat which the protracted flowers of respect scene matches in hollowness. A pity, it is a film with its heart in the right place, even if the trailer was better.
Country: GB/FR/BEL
Technical: col 113m
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Dave Turner, Ebla Mari, Trevor Fox
Synopsis:
2016, and a village in Co. Durham is host to an influx of Syrian refugees, while the landlord and local pub are both hanging on to life. Can the community open its doors and bond with the 'foreigner', or will it succumb to the hostile negativity of its once united pit workers?
Review:
Loach and his long time collaborator, Paul Laverty, ought to have hit the mother lode with this subject matter - Brexit feelings high, underprivileged have-nothings left on the scrap heap with more in common than they know - but they somehow blow it. Not that some scenes don't work, and it says plenty of things that need saying, but Laverty's ear for dialogue seems to have failed him, as has the master's knack at coaxing believable performances from his non-professional cast. Yara's soliloquy in Durham cathedral hits something like a top note, pitched between hope and despair, but T-J's counterpart speech in the pub is over-pointed and has a ring of defeat which the protracted flowers of respect scene matches in hollowness. A pity, it is a film with its heart in the right place, even if the trailer was better.