I, Daniel Blake
Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival 2016, this is Ken Loach's drama about a 59-year-old carpenter in North-East England who falls ill and requires state assistance for disability. While he endeavours to overcome the red tape involved in getting this assistance, he meets single mother Katie.
- Director:
- Ken Loach ('The Wind That Shakes the Barley', 'Kes', 'The Angels' Share', 'Sweet Sixteen')
- Writer:
- Paul Laverty
- Cast:
- Dave JohnsHayley SquiresDylan McKiernanBriana ShannSharon Percy
Reviews & comments
Flicks, Liam Maguren
flicksAlthough I’ve personally enjoyed previous Palme d’Or winners, they’re typically tough to sell to general audiences. I couldn’t tell my neighbour to sacrifice three hours for talky Turkish tale Winter Sleep, I would not dare push Michael Haneke’s Amour on my parents, and we all know where we stand on The Tree of Life.
A confronting portrait of an ordinary man struggling for dignity in an Orwellian world
If film is a mirror on society then the sheer volume of recent movies about the ugliness of the post-GFC world is a reflection of the scale of devastation it has caused. Most are essays in poverty that explore the loss of humanity for ordinary people. The film I, Daniel Blake (2016) is another in this genre. It is an intense portrait of an ordinary man who...
Ken Loach is mad as hell, and he ain't gonna take it any more!
Some critics have accused I, Daniel Blake of being too schematic - of skewing the Kafkaesque convolutions of Britain’s welfare system so devastatingly against the titular character that his situation becomes unbelievable. Well, those critics are partially correct, but they’re also overlooking the fact that the heightened nature of Daniel Blake’s situation...
Northern Uk slice of lower income life due to circumstances
A classic Ken Loach movie that presents what life is like when money becomes skint due to circumstances. An eye opener for those never had to deal with social services and how the very system set up to support the vulnerable can backfire through bureacracy. Great acting and quite engrossing. Not a fast pace movie but not slow or dragging either. Enjoyable...
A tough tale of bureaucratic insanity of Monty Pythonesque proportions!
I, DANIEL BLAKE Ken Loach’s Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy gone batshit crazy is a bleak, brutal and bloody infuriating journey through a dis-United Kingdom, and the death throes of the Welfare State. It’s a damning drama, lifted by touching humanity, humour and spirit, as embodied by Paul Laverty’s script and a committed cast acting their socks...
Variety
pressOne of Loach's finest films, a drama of tender devastation that tells its story with an unblinking neorealist simplicity that goes right back to the plainspoken purity of Vittorio De Sica.
Total Film
pressThe 80-year-old director still has plenty of fire in his belly. Warm, belligerent and, in places, unbearably moving.
Time Out
pressA spare film, muted in colour - and all the more powerful and urgent for it.
The Guardian
pressThis film intervenes in the messy, ugly world of poverty with the secular intention of making us see that it really is happening, and in a prosperous nation, too. I, Daniel Blake is a movie with a fierce, simple dignity of its own.
Stuff
pressIf you're not going to see I, Daniel Blake, then don't bother telling me that you're a fan of good films. Because you're not.
SBS
pressA fierce and often funny polemic designed to leave a lump in your throat and a fire in your belly.
Hollywood Reporter
pressWhile the framework and perspective are familiar, the veteran Brit director's films can still have the power to grip us in an emotional chokehold.
Empire Magazine
pressLoach scans the contemporary landscape, and instead of a firebrand approach of stereotype, delivers a film of immense sadness.
Flicks, Liam Maguren
flicksAlthough I’ve personally enjoyed previous Palme d’Or winners, they’re typically tough to sell to general audiences. I couldn’t tell my neighbour to sacrifice three hours for talky Turkish tale Winter Sleep, I would not dare push Michael Haneke’s Amour on my parents, and we all know where we stand on The Tree of Life.
Variety
pressOne of Loach's finest films, a drama of tender devastation that tells its story with an unblinking neorealist simplicity that goes right back to the plainspoken purity of Vittorio De Sica.
Total Film
pressThe 80-year-old director still has plenty of fire in his belly. Warm, belligerent and, in places, unbearably moving.
Time Out
pressA spare film, muted in colour - and all the more powerful and urgent for it.
The Guardian
pressThis film intervenes in the messy, ugly world of poverty with the secular intention of making us see that it really is happening, and in a prosperous nation, too. I, Daniel Blake is a movie with a fierce, simple dignity of its own.
Stuff
pressIf you're not going to see I, Daniel Blake, then don't bother telling me that you're a fan of good films. Because you're not.
SBS
pressA fierce and often funny polemic designed to leave a lump in your throat and a fire in your belly.
Hollywood Reporter
pressWhile the framework and perspective are familiar, the veteran Brit director's films can still have the power to grip us in an emotional chokehold.
Empire Magazine
pressLoach scans the contemporary landscape, and instead of a firebrand approach of stereotype, delivers a film of immense sadness.
A confronting portrait of an ordinary man struggling for dignity in an Orwellian world
If film is a mirror on society then the sheer volume of recent movies about the ugliness of the post-GFC world is a reflection of the scale of devastation it has caused. Most are essays in poverty that explore the loss of humanity for ordinary people. The film I, Daniel Blake (2016) is another in this genre. It is an intense portrait of an ordinary man...
Ken Loach is mad as hell, and he ain't gonna take it any more!
Some critics have accused I, Daniel Blake of being too schematic - of skewing the Kafkaesque convolutions of Britain’s welfare system so devastatingly against the titular character that his situation becomes unbelievable. Well, those critics are partially correct, but they’re also overlooking the fact that the heightened nature of Daniel Blake’s situation...
Northern Uk slice of lower income life due to circumstances
A classic Ken Loach movie that presents what life is like when money becomes skint due to circumstances. An eye opener for those never had to deal with social services and how the very system set up to support the vulnerable can backfire through bureacracy. Great acting and quite engrossing. Not a fast pace movie but not slow or dragging either....
A tough tale of bureaucratic insanity of Monty Pythonesque proportions!
I, DANIEL BLAKE Ken Loach’s Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy gone batshit crazy is a bleak, brutal and bloody infuriating journey through a dis-United Kingdom, and the death throes of the Welfare State. It’s a damning drama, lifted by touching humanity, humour and spirit, as embodied by Paul Laverty’s script and a committed cast acting their socks...
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