Review of I, Daniel Blake (2016) by Mauro_Lanari — 21 Dec 2021

(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.