Seeds of hope
15 ★★★
Firebrand British director Ken Loach has retired after delivering the final film in a remarkable six-decade career. The Old Oak isn’t as powerful as Kes or as righteously angry as I, Daniel Blake but the 87-year-old has made a solid film that rarely wavers from his preoccupations with community, class and compassion.
Set in 2016, it begins with a coachload of Syrian refugees arriving in an impoverished former mining community in County Durham. As they are shepherded off the bus, an angry man in a Newcastle United shirt unleashes a torrent of abuse. Thankfully, kindly publican TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) is there to protect the refugees from their welcoming committee.
TJ has plenty of problems of his own. The former miner and recovering alcoholic’s decrepit pub, The Old Oak, has been falling to pieces since the 90s. His wife has left him and his drinking has left him estranged from his son.
When he steps in to help twentysomething new arrival Yara (Ebla Mari) fix a broken camera, he also alienates his few remaining regulars.
To them, charity begins at home. House prices are plummeting, social services have been decimated and the refugees are further proof that their village has become “a dumping ground”.
“Why don’t they look after them in Westminster or Chelsea?” one local asks, not entirely without reason.
To forge a new community spirit, TJ uses his old trade union connections to source donations and reopen the kitchen in the pub’s neglected back room so new and old residents can break bread together.
Some scenes feel a bit slushy but it’s hard to be unmoved by Loach’s undimmed faith in the human spirit. He will be missed.
‘‘ It’s hard to be unmoved by Loach’s undimmed faith in the human spirit