{"id":28912,"date":"2023-10-06T15:32:32","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T14:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=28912"},"modified":"2023-10-06T15:32:32","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T14:32:32","slug":"a-review-of-the-new-film-the-old-oak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=28912","title":{"rendered":"A review of the new film &#8220;The Old Oak&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\nKen Loach is a singular British director who addresses social issues that few others consider and does so in a characteristically humanist, even socialist, style. so it&#8217;s rather sad to learn that this is probably the last work from the 87 year old filmmaker.\n<p>\nFollowing &#8220;I, Daniel Blake&#8221; (the benefits system) and &#8220;Sorry We Missed You&#8221; (the gig economy), &#8220;The Old Oak&#8221; &#8211; the title is the pub where much of the action unfolds &#8211; looks at the way some working class people (the story is set in the north-east of England) react to the arrival of refugees from war-torn Syria (the sitting is 2016). Like the previous two films, the mood is almost unremittingly grim, although this time there is an attempt to manufacture an uplifting ending.\n<p>\nAs with all Loach&#8217;s work, the director highlights an important social issue with force and passion, but his approach is didactic. As so often, the characters are one-dimensional and the dialogue is rather leaden (the script is from Loach&#8217;s regular screenwriter Paul Laverty) and the cast is mostly unknown and inexperienced (it often shows). So a worthy, but ultimately rather underwhelming, finale from Ken Loach.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ken Loach is a singular British director who addresses social issues that few others consider and does so in a characteristically humanist, even socialist, style. so it&#8217;s rather sad to learn that this is probably the last work from the 87 year old filmmaker. Following &#8220;I, Daniel Blake&#8221; (the benefits system) and &#8220;Sorry We Missed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28913,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28912\/revisions\/28913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}