Watch | 16. Feb 2020

Sorry, We Missed You - Heartbreaking but not at all sentimental

You may have heard about this movie before. And everything you read is true: Ken Loach succeeded again, describing carefully and without any useless sentiment the situation of a family in England; years ago they would have been part of a lower middle-class, that make ends meet with two reasonable incomes to feed a family of four.

Nowadays, it seems nearly impossible to survive.

The new system of making people work rather as free-lancers than engage them as employees hits the couple drastically: Ricky has to buy a van himself for his job as a delivery driver, his wife Abbie is paid not for her hours of work but by the numbers of clients she works for - elderly, mostly disabled people she takes care of. Both work six days a week, mostly between twelve and fourteen hours.

What hit me the most is the way Loach tells this story through the eyes of the two teenaged children: the eager and smart eleven year old daughter Liza and the fifteen year old son Seb - especially his problems, and also: his way of looking at his parent´s problems will break your heart.

While some critics (likeThe Guardian) understands the film as a Pro-Europe-campaign - to me the movie rather explains how people end up with choosing Brexit. Or Trump. Or the AFD party in Germany.

Because most politicians in those countries seem to have forgotten about exactly those people. By creating a system of leaving all responsibilities with every individual family, they promote a modern way of exploitation in disguise of so called freedom.

When you watch the son and his friends spraying walls, then again taking care of simple everyday tasks, but also showing so much emotional support for his folks, you cannot help but hope for this young generation to take over our planet.

The sooner the better.