Review of I, Daniel Blake (2016) by Rob A — 25 May 2017

It is amazing that it has taken this long for "I, Daniel Blake" to even get a limited US release. As winner of last year's Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it's safe to assume that that will not be the end of this film's accolades.

Director Ken Loach has an almost unmarred history of producing quality films over the last 50 years, but this emotive and honest look at poverty in the first world rivals his 1969 masterpiece "Kes".

The film concerns the titular Daniel Blake, a widower out of work due to health issues, as he struggles against a system that slowly kills the poor through starvation, exposure, and endless bureaucracy.

He befriends a single mother of two, and they try to help each other stay afloat in a society of indifference. Along the way they have chance encounters with glimmers of human kindness that help them get by for the time being.

It's not too dissimilar from last year's "A Man Called Ove" in terms of characters and plot, but the two films diverge in focus. "...Ove" is more concerned with the heart and how we can distance ourselves from others due to trauma whereas ".

..Blake" is an indictment of the state for its apathetic role in the degradation of the working class. Dave Johns does an excellent job of capturing Blake as a man who refuses to give up in spite of being trapped in an endless loop of paperwork and meetings.

He embodies the frustration that the working class has simmered in for the last decade since, between the housing crisis and the banking collapse, it became abundantly clear that the haves will make no caveats for the have-nots.