The Old Oak

The Old Oak, the latest, and possibly the final film, from legendary director Ken Loach, is as vital, stirring, somber, and clear eyed as the rest of his work. Concentrating on a nearly extinct northern England mining town, the film follows the lives of Tommy Jo Ballentyne, and of Yara. Tommy is the owner of the local pub, after which the film is titled. Yara is a young Syrian refugee, who, in 2016, finds herself and her family relocated to Tommy’s village during the height of the crisis in her country. She and her family, along with the other Syrian families, get an angry, resentful and racist non-welcome, though Tommy and a few of his friends, including the social aid work, Laura, try to help, if only in small ways.

As with other Loach films, the work begins in media res, where we quickly meet many of our major players and themes. During the initial sequence, a bigot breaks Yara’s camera, and Tommy offers to pay for it to be fixed, sparking a friendship which leads to his wanting to use the back room of The Old Oak as a common eating room for locals and refugees to come together. This angers the traditional natives, who wanted to use the room for meetings on how to rid themselves of the refugees. The room, however, is not just any room. It holds special significance in the community, as it is where striking miners and their families would gather, over the years. It has not been opened in decades. Photos of the 1984/85 strike adorn the walls, taken by members of the community.

Courtesy Kino Lorber

As with all Loach films, the work contains long sequences with little dialogue, but as with all Loach films, those are balanced out by long speeches, all of which are glorious, due to the brilliant acting and the wonderful writing. Paul Laverty, who has been Loach’s go-to writer for nearly three decades, can count this among his best work. It may be the most quietly emotional film Loach and Laverty have yet made. The final scene may leave you shaking, depending on your investment in the journey of these characters.

Loach has never been a director to rely of flashy photography or attention-grabbing editing, always preferring to focus on character, place, space and time in ways which are nearly documentarian. Days of Hope, his extraordinary miniseries set between 1916 and 1926, about a family caught up in the labor movement of the time, could almost serve as background to this work. Tommy’s family and friends have roots going back decades, with traditions about family and trust, about community and love and respect and honor. Yet, with the arrival of the refugees, these men and women have forgotten their values. Tommy, rightly, is disgusted. Not just at his neighbors, but at the world, at the leaders who let down towns and people just like them all over, and at himself, for not doing more, sooner. It is, as so many works of Loach, a call to action.

Courtesy Kino Lorber

The cast, here, is mostly non-professional, though headed by longtime character actor Dave Turner, who is mesmerizing as Tommy. He makes Tommy instantly likable, with a center of loneliness and longing that comes from someplace well intentioned. You can feel his layers stripped back, over the course of the film, as he finds himself again. He gets many scenes about the power of community and collective action, and nails every single one right to the wall. Count this among the great male performances Loach has helped craft. Ebla Mari, as Yara, a newcomer to the world of acting, is equally impressive. The chemistry here, never at all sexual or romantic, is the very human heart and soul of this powerful picture.

 The film speaks about lost and restored faith, belief in both the spiritual and religious as well as that which is purely humanistic. The film, ultimately, believes in the power of communities to create and support. It is about the power of hope and love, of compassion and the need to come together and not give in to what is easy, to not let hatred and cruelty carry the day. The most startling aspect of all this is that while the film contains many people that are clearly doing or saying terrible things, they are not shown as cardboard villains, but as people who, given the right circumstances and a bit of understanding and space, could be brought into the fold. It is a film about what ought to unify us and how to resist what seeks to isolate us.

THE OLD OAK is now showing in limited theaters