I, Daniel Blake (MA). Director: Ken Loach. Starring: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Kema Sikazwe. 101 minutes
In his essay 'Chicago Christmas, 1984', American writer George Saunders recalls learning the value of money after watching a roofer colleague, John, gamble away his Christmas bonus during a staff party. Saunders, 26 and 'at the embarrassing end of a series of attempts at channelling Kerouac', was himself broke, living in his aunt's basement, and under pressure from his girlfriend to earn a living.
That night, seeing John, 'gentle-voiced and dignified' and a father of 14, goaded into gambling away his hard-earned bonus, shook Saunders' notions of being romantically penniless. 'I thought of my aunt, who worked three jobs and whom I had not yet paid a dime for food, and of my girlfriend, who now paid whenever we went out, which was never ... Finally I got it: money forestalled disgrace.'
Money, and the indignity and hardship that can attend its lack, are concerns central to I, Daniel Blake. Equal parts comedy and tragedy, the film sees veteran English director Ken Loach continue a career-long interest in the lives of the working class, forging a new blue-collar hero in the figure of his titular lead character, a joiner forced onto welfare at 59 due to a heart condition.
Daniel (Johns) is on doctor's orders not to work. But obtaining the benefits to which he is entitled proves to be a challenge of Kafka-esque proportions. He is grilled by a welfare officer about every aspect of his physical health — except, that is, the only relevant one, his heart. Later, he runs afoul of the agency's 'online by default' processes. Daniel has never used a computer in his life.
The welfare system as Daniel experiences it is a bureaucratic nightmare, populated by condescending Health Care Professionals, shadowy and calculating Decision Makers, managers who loom over their clients like stern parents, and caseworkers under pressure to stifle any human compassion for their desperate supplicants. Daniel braves the farce with incredulity and waning patience.
"Katie's arc demonstrates even more baldly than Daniel's the cost to dignity and self-care for those on the margins of society, neglected by the state."
Yet Daniel, portrayed by Johns with stoic good humour even amid frustration and despair, embodies the empathy and selflessness that is so lacking from these 'human services'. He exchanges barbs with his young black neighbour (Sikazwe), who can be a pest and runs a