For his allegedly final feature, esteemed kitchen sink surfer/social realist Ken Loach takes us to the North of England, 2016 to tell the tale of Yara (Elba Mari), a twenty-something Syrian refugee with a passion for photography who travels to the UK with her family to escape her war torn country. Upon arrival, Yara and family are rehoused in an old mining village but met with hostility from racist locals. Yara then meets and befriends pub landlord/handyman Tommy J. Ballantyne (Dave Turner), who welcomes her to the village and sets out to mend local community fissures, despite retaliation from his prejudiced pub regulars.
Regular Ken Loach writer/collaborator Paul Laverty’s screenplay charts Yara and Tommy’s attempt to disentangle the socio-economic/political division in the community born from bigotry and financial hardships, to strive for solidarity. The village adversities at the root of the locals’ despair are partly attributed to the decline of its once thriving mining industry, free-falling property values and a Cypriot company bulk buying houses via an online auction at significantly less than the locals paid.
Loach’s deprived and near ravaged landscape with dilapidated buildings, tracksuit lads and fighting dogs almost feels post-apocalyptic with realism augmented by clashing cultures and characters fractured by deprivation, which contribute towards its strong and rousing narrative.
The vast array of fascinating characters make The Old Oak more of a multifaceted tale than a tightly focused character study, despite Tommy and Yara arising as protagonists. Their historical heartache and emphatic compassion grace Loach’s latest with potent drama, complex depth and prevailing humanity which bolsters its social commentary with needed warmth within darker undertones.
The friendship between Tommy and Yara is wonderful to watch grow (albeit very slowly) in the context of such a bleak, near broken community as The Old Oak stirs strongest during scenes where characters strive to do the right thing, when it’s easier to revert to anger like so many around them. The town chasm widens when Tommy decides to renovate his pub’s function room for an event to welcome the newcomers despite declining to do so for the bigoted locals who want to use it for a town meeting to speak out against them. Tommy’s views deviate from those of his old friends, as he identifies more with the newcomers and their plight over the local drinkers rallying for uproar.
As the Syrian families integrate, we learn more about their backgrounds which deepens the drama and drives the narrative. This is notable in a scene where Yara tells Tommy about her father being taken by the state sponsored militia of the Syrian regime. Tommy shares his regret of a failed marriage and sadness about his estranged son while reflecting with rose-tinted regret while recalling the town’s greater years; scenes from which are captured in dusty black and white photos hanging in the Old Oak’s function room: “If the workers realised the power they had and had the confidence to use it, they could’ve changed the world… but we never did.”
It is Loach and Laverty’s ability to craft such arresting moments and turn them into such a stimulating, predominantly cohesive narrative which infrequently meanders due to a shaggy (in places) telling, yet the cast and crew soar to strengthen The Old Oak into a masterly vision of social deprivation, the toll it takes and the rising humanity needed to instil hope, in a tale that feels more inspiring and heartfelt than a cold social commentary/account of hardship.
