I, Daniel Blake (2016)

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Ken Loach takes on modern, Kafaesque requirements to access job seeker benefits. Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) can't work after a heart attack, but his application for that class of benefits is denied; to get a jobseeker benefit instead he has to spend 35 hours a week looking for work, which his doctor will in any case not let him take. A bureaucratic hell.

This is a film designed to make you angry, and as indignity is heaped upon indignity it does just that. Perhaps the best thing about it is the lack of easy targets. The job centre includes power-mad middle-managers, yes, but also workers who genuinely care. And the banality of evil is such a person being told that she is offering too much help, that it sets a precedent.

Excruciatingly horrible must-watch.

- Sam - 2021-06-20 13:22:17