Director: Ken Loach
Year: 2019
Duration : 101 min.
Country: UK
Film script : Paul Laverty
Music:George Fenton
Photography : Robbie Ryan
Gender: Drama / social drama / Family
Cast : Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone, Katie Proctor, Nikki Marshall, Harriet Ghost, Linda E Greenwood, Alfie Dobson, Mark Birch, Ross Brewster, Julian Ions, Charlie Richmond, Brad Hopper
Producer: Coproducción Reino Unido-Francia-Bélgica; Sixteen Films, BBC Films, BFI Film Fund, Les Films du Fleuve, Why Not Productions, Wild Bunch.
Distributor : Front Row Filmed Entertainment
Distributor in Spain : Golem Distribución
Premiere in Spain: October 31, 2019
Original version: in English subtitles in Spanish
2019: BAFTA Awards: Nominated for Best British Film
2019: Cannes Film Festival: Official Competition Feature Films Section
2019: San Sebastian Film Festival: Audience Award – Best European Film
2019: British Independent Film Awards (BIFA): Nom. Best Screenplay and Actor (Hitchen)
2020: Gaudí Awards: Best European Film
2020: David di Donatello Awards: Nominated for Best Foreign Film
SYNOPSIS
Argelia, 1954. In the midst of harsh winter, Daru (Viggo Mortensen), a French teacher, aceRicky and his family have been struggling with debt since the financial crisis of 2008. Fortunately for them there is a great opportunity to get a break and even opt for some independence thanks to a new van. The family decides to create a home delivery franchise. It’s a tough job and Ricky’s wife being an assistant doesn’t make things any easier. However, the family is determined to stick together, no matter what difficulties come their way.
THE CRITICISM
“Look at the present to understand it. That is Loach’s proposal, born from the immediacy of his vision, from the speed of a camera that captures life, that grasps reality. Urgent cinema, necessary cinema”
Ken Loach he has done it again. At 83 years old, the British director has managed to sign an excellent drama, a wonderful film with a furious and painful topicality. As if it were a young man in his thirties, Loach, by the hand of his magnificent screenwriter Paul Laverty, tells us in ‘Sorry we missed you’ the story of a young family from Newcastle who tries to get ahead as best he can. A family drama that is a necessary critique of contemporary economic development.
‘Sorry we missed you’ stars a family with four components: Ricky, Abbie, Seb and Lisa Jane. Ricky, the father, gets a new job delivering packages at home and that’s where the story begins. His task is to deliver all the packages on time, something so demanding that it prevents him from even having a moment to go to the bathroom. The title of the film ‘Sorry we missed you’ is the message that delivery men leave if the person who ordered something is not at home. In the same way, this ‘Sorry we missed you’ appeals, in a metaphorical way, to the harsh reality to which this type of work leads the people who perform it. Rick gives himself body and soul to his work because he has no choice if he wants to continue bringing money home, but this makes his wife and children, especially his eldest son, miss him. Living to work but no time to live.
The mother of the family, Abbie, suffers something very similar. She works piecework, in her case caring for old men and women who have no one else. Again a task and a working day that hardly leave him time to enjoy his family. And in the same way a job against the clock, since the number of people that Abbie has to take care of every day makes her run from one place to another. If we add to this that Abbie moves around the city by public transport, since her salary does not allow her to afford her own vehicle to go from one patient’s house to another, time runs over. Like her husband, Abbie has a job that leaves her no time to live.
The family is completed by Seb, the eldest son, a teenager, who rebels against the reality of his family and his own; and little Lisa Jane, another born fighter trying to keep her family together.
Next screening: February 10, 2022
CHILDREN OF THE SUN by Majid Majidi
Ali, a 12-year-old boy, and his three friends work to survive and help their families by doing garage jobs and committing petty crimes to get quick money. In a miraculous turn of events, Ali is tasked with finding a hidden treasure underground.
