In a small town in the north of England in 2016, TJ is struggling to keep his pub afloat. Once prosperous, the locality has experienced dark days since the closure of the mine. With unemployment and properties no longer worth anything, the citizen mood is gloomy. So when a bus full of Syrian refugees arrives, the population suddenly finds an outlet for their frustration. But not TJ, who strikes up an unexpected friendship with one of the nationals, Yara. With The Old Oak (The Old Oak. Our ad), named after the protagonist’s pub, Ken Loach offers a swan song in the form of a call for solidarity against a backdrop of poignant social realism.
It was almost a year after its unveiling in Cannes, where the film competed in official competition, that The Old Oak is finally showing here. The wait will have been worth it. Once again, the Loach magic operates: non-professional performers more real than real, technique and invoice without affectation for harsh authenticity…
What Ken Loach announced as his last film should be placed in the upper fringe of his illustrious work. One of the most activist filmmakers there is, Loach continues here in the vein of these two previous feature films, I, Daniel Blake (Me, Daniel Blake) And Sorry We Missed You (Sorry I missed you).
Thus, after having denounced, always from the point of view of ordinary people, an inoperative health care system, then a ruthless market economy, Loach this time focuses his indignation on the fate reserved for refugees. This without transforming those who reject them into intolerant and xenophobic philists (although a tertiary character ticks all these boxes).
Imbued with infinite compassion for those to whom he has devoted most of his cinema, Loach chooses instead to show how, when one has lost everything, sometimes even one’s dignity, it becomes tempting to point out a culprit on who let off steam. Share ? When everything was taken away from you? Anger roars, hatred explodes.
Undeniable wisdom
In this context of latent conflict, TJ paradoxically regains a certain serenity, he who has been struggling for years. In this role written with finesse by Paul Laverty, regular collaborator of Ken Loach, Dave Turner is very inhabited. We immediately believe in this man battered by life to such an extent that he almost gave up.
And if TJ has decided to continue, something in his eyes and his posture attests to the weight of an arduous existence.
The trials have in any case instilled in him an undeniable wisdom, as evidenced by this tirade launched at an embittered former comrade: “We always look for a scapegoat for our misery by looking down the ladder, never up. Because it’s easier to crush those who are even worse off than us. »
The completely platonic relationship that develops with Yara (Elba Mari, incredibly accurate) is also luminous, even if the shadow of discontent and resentment of TJ’s clients hangs over it. But here again, Loach qualifies the line and directs his anger towards a political power which, it is clear, has let down the population.
While everything points to an inevitable confrontation, the film does not culminate in the expected way, or finally, does not take the expected turn. A final solidarity occurs, for reasons that we will not mention. In this regard, some may consider that Ken Loach is failing in his realistic bias. However, we can ultimately only admire the filmmaker for daring to hope at the end of such a committed career.