Sorry We Missed You

I was fortunate to get the last remaining ticket for this at the New Zealand Film Festival. Ken Loach has done it again. Sorry we missed you is another masterpiece, a fierce, angry and unapologetic film about the zero hour contract and the devastating cost to so many people working in Britain today.

The film tells the story of one family's struggle to regain financial independence whilst working jobs with zero hour contracts and the stress and uncertainty this brings. We witness their family life become more and more toxic as both parents become exhausted and eventually lose their sense of dignity.

Like most of Ken Loaches films it's graphic, brutally honest and difficult to watch at times. but told with real empathy. At one point in the film the lady next to me buried her head in her hands her as she couldn't bare to witness the struggle and humiliation facing the family.

During another scene in the film the whole theatre burst into applause as the wife grabs the phone from her husband out of sheer anger at the way he is being talked to by his unempatheitc boss and gives him a piece of his mind.

The film doesn't end on a happy note, there isn't any way it for it to do so. It simply highlights that for many the struggle is both real and never ending and yet again you leave the theatre feeling upset and angry that such atrocities are allowed to happen.