I, Daniel Blake

Director Ken Loach won his second Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier this year (previously for The Wind that Shakes the Barley) with a damning critique of the benefits system. Set in Newcastle, Daniel Blake has suffered a heart attack while on the job as a carpenter, and although a qualified doctor advises him to rest, the Health Professional at the Job Centre deems him ‘fit for work’ and he is forced to look for employment if he is to receive any form of income. The Jobseekers Allowance centre is place of Kafka-scale frustration, of form-filling, waiting rooms and unsympathetic employees. Daniel is lost with computers and spends hours on the phone trying to negotiate a case appeal. He meets single mum Katie and her two children and they band together; Daniel becomes the grandfather figure of benevolence and woodwork skills, refurbishing the family’s flat and accompanying them to the food bank.

It starts miserable and continues that way, and thank goodness screenwriter (and long-time Loach collaborator) Paul Laverty doesn't go down the happy ending route that so many of these social dramas inevitably would. There is no message of optimism because in reality the welfare system is slowly killing its users. There is very little nuance when it comes to Job Centre employees though, a lack of compassion and basic humanity that may just have given us a glimpse into how the other side views this injustice.

As the title suggests Blake ends up as a martyr, a victim of a backwards system: his graffiti-ing of the Job Centre’s wall and resolute stubbornness get him applause and a date for his appeal, but ultimately this is not enough. He is honest throughout: he never thinks about lying during medical examinations and isn’t even tempted by his neighbour’s imported trainer racket. He remains dignified until the end. The filmmaking is plain and the story a tragedy, highlighting something that we perhaps already know, but just sweep under the carpet.