X
- 2016
- R
- Sundance Selects
- 1 h 40 m
- 2016
- R
- Sundance Selects
- 1 h 40 m
Summary Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the latest from legendary director Ken Loach is a gripping, human tale about the impact one man can make. Gruff but goodhearted, Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) is a man out of time: a widowed woodworker who’s never owned a computer, he lives according to his own common sense moral cod...
Directed By: Ken Loach
Written By: Paul Laverty
- 2016
- R
- Sundance Selects
- 1 h 40 m
- 2016
- R
- Sundance Selects
- 1 h 40 m
I, Daniel Blake
78
7.9
Where to Watch
Summary Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the latest from legendary director Ken Loach is a gripping, human tale about the impact one man can make. Gruff but goodhearted, Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) is a man out of time: a widowed woodworker who’s never owned a computer, he lives according to his own common sense moral cod...
Directed By: Ken Loach
Written By: Paul Laverty
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 31 Critic Reviews
78
94% Positive
29 Reviews
29 Reviews
6% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 31 Critic Reviews
78
94% Positive
29 Reviews
29 Reviews
6% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
This is a kitchen-sink hymn for the indomitable spirit of the common man.
Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Loach is a master at capturing the day-to-day of British life, and this film, which won the coveted Palm D'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, is no exception. That said, it may be easier for some to decipher the heavy British accents than others.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 98 User Ratings
7.9
82% Positive
80 Ratings
80 Ratings
14% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
4% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 98 User Ratings
7.9
82% Positive
80 Ratings
80 Ratings
14% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
4% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
From Ken Loach, another typical portrait of mid- class british people, showing the story of a modern Don Quijote and this one-man war against the insensitive bureaucracy. The final act deserves a long, loud applause. For watch while hum Working Class Hero by John Lennon.
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The emotional wallop grows more zealous with almost every sequence, and Loach’s refusal to go easy on us is as stubborn as it was when he made “Cathy Come Home.”
Loach scans the contemporary landscape, and instead of a firebrand approach of stereotype, delivers a film of immense sadness. Someone should project this on the walls of the Department for Work and Pensions.
I, Daniel Blake is about human value: disposable and abstract in one context; eternal, inviolable and sacred in another. They might underline the point a bit too thickly, but Loach and Laverty count on their audience to discern the difference, and to act accordingly.
While it might not break new ground, there is no denying the potency of the film’s empathetic anguish and fury.
It's pock-marked by the conservative dramatic conventions and broad political gestures that have marred much of Ken Loach's recent output.
A touching yet scathing indictment of the bureaucratic social services system, one supposedly designed to aid its constituents but that's ultimately more concerned with rules, regulations and nitpicking than providing genuine care to the real people it's designed to serve. With excellent performances, a fine script and a directorial style aimed at showing more than telling, filmmaker Ken Loach's latest is well-deserving of all the accolades it has received. Despite a slight tendency to meander at times, this one is well worth your time, an inspiring tale about what we can do when our self-respect and personal dignity are on the line.
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‘A heart-wrenching polemic of state-led bureaucracy in Britain, executed masterfully by the country’s finest socially aware director ****.’
Having been decorated with arguably the most prestigious artistic award in film, the Palm d’Or in May this year, ‘I, Daniel Blake’ is an immensely powerful representation of the struggle between humane compassion and determination against the constant, and highly unacceptable oppressiveness of the current welfare state. It is a battle-cry for common decency that yearns for open ears and absorbent hearts, lifting you by the collar and catapulting you into Loach’s formidable neorealist world of unjust societal issues.
The world in which we are immersed in is portrayed through the life of Daniel Blake, a ruthlessly determined and proud carpenter from the industrial and grey skied north-east city of Newcastle, who due to a heart condition has been forced to leave work and apply for Employment and Support Allowance. Having been rejected by the robotic hierarchy of ‘officials’ in the Jobseekers Allowance offices, we are transported with Daniel (stand-up comedian Dave Johns) on a journey of degradation that makes you both question the government’s understanding of welfare and have faith in humanity all at once.
The crucially succinct narrative, written by Loach’s long term collaborator Paul Laverty, is incredibly effective and acts as a main indicator between the everyday man and the overarching shadow of the state. The monotone ramblings of the office worker in the speech orientated opening scene when asking Daniel to perform simple tasks such as raising his arm, paralleled against the at first jovial disbelief of Blake, set the tone for the rest of the film. It is the nameless ‘health professional’ who triumphs over Daniel’s confusion and inability, deeming him unfit to work and instigating the beginning of the end. Daniel’s life is paired alongside that of Katie’s (played by rising star Hayley Squires), a single mum of two who has travelled from the capital of soaring house prices and living costs to Newcastle with her two children Daisy and Dylan. Our understanding of Katie’s situation is demonstrated in her own struggle against the cold-blooded resistance of Sheila, the steely-eyed stone-faced office worker, who rejects any form of empathy towards the pale-skinned and harrowed Londoner. Daniel’s disbelief at witnessing the dehumanisation of such a vulnerable member of society sparks a relationship that although at first unlikely, is bonded by the need for common good and compassion in such a bleak situation.
It is the intangible ambition of both Daniel and Katie respectively that makes this film so incredibly powerful. Or perhaps it is the fact their hopes and aspirations are so brutally rejected that does it instead. Katie talks of rebuilding the lives of her and her children, ‘making this house a home’ if it’s the last thing she does and attending Open University to give her the best chance of escaping from poverty in the world’s fifth wealthiest country. Daniel’s determination is portrayed through his acts of kindness, for example, by crafting a hanging fish ornament identical to the one in his own home, for Katie’s daughter Daisy. It is only Daniel’s inability to overcome technological computerised form-filling techniques that counteract against his determination and ambition. For Katie, a simple broken tile that falls upon cleaning it speaks volumes of her own **** personality. They are aspirational, hard-working individuals seeking a fair crack of the government’s relentless encroaching whip.
And in no scene does this whip crack harder than when young Katie is reduced to ripping off the lid from a tin of baked beans as she finally hits rock bottom in the food bank. I don’t think I’ve ever been moved so bluntly by a scene in any film before. The cinematography is impeccable, as we see a wide-angled shot of the packed shelves that raise above Katie, while she devours the pathetic tin of food. This scene, depicting a simple action that many of us take for granted every day rises above any politicised narrative and is simply about human survival rather than agenda. Left, right, centre. We’re all human.
This film is so intrinsic and beautifully made that I could dissect every scene and take something away from it. There is simply no filler and the performances from both Johns and Squire are so subtly and movingly executed that it could have passed a true documentary. Every scene, every word, every whisper, every grunt, every broken Geordie and London accent needs listened to. The words leave the mouths and enter your chest before your ears with an emotional punch like no other.
There’s a bit of Daniel and Katie in all of us, no matter who you are or where you’re from. We just hope that we aren’t the unlucky ones.
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This might just be the kindest review of a movie that I didn't particularly like and that's because as a whole it's not a bad movie. Then again it's not exactly making the big dramatic statement it thinks it's making. It's well written with good performances from the main cast. The supporting cast/extras on the other hand is a totally different story, seriously I don’t know what they blew the budget on but some of the acting in this was just awful. At about the half way mark it started to feel like an overly long, depressing soap opera. Recommended if you've nothing else to watch.
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(Mauro Lanari)
1) Venturing into Kafkaesque territories, Loach loses incisiveness. The cogs of the bureaucracy do not preferentially crush the poor, they also oppress any other ordinary citizen. 2) There is a serious script hole that further weakens the film: the cardiopathic protagonist no longer undergoes medical checkups, so it is impossible to attribute his lethal heart attack to a precise and unequivocal cause. 3) It is unsettling to see in a work by Loach the needy who, to a mutual, supportive and cooperative help, prefer self-isolation out of proud respect for their own dignity. Is unity no longer strength?
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Very worthy - but it could have been so much better - the characters are too black and white, some of the situations they find themselves in are too twee, all of the stereotypes are levered in there somewhere and the dialogue is not clever. Make a documentary or use drama to accentuate emotions, situations and characters.
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Production Company
Sixteen Films,
Why Not Productions,
Wild Bunch,
British Film Institute (BFI),
BBC Film,
Les Films du Fleuve,
France 2 Cinéma,
Canal+,
France Télévisions,
Le Pacte,
Cinéart,
Ciné+,
VOO,
BeTV
Release Date Dec 23, 2016
Duration 1 h 40 m
Rating R
Genres
Tagline Intensely Moving and Utterly Heartbreaking!
Awards
British Independent Film Awards
• 2 Wins & 7 Nominations
Dublin Film Critics Circle Awards
• 3 Wins & 5 Nominations
BAFTA Awards
• 1 Win & 5 Nominations
