Soapy and sentimental: Ken Loach’s The Old Oak reviewed

Ken Loach has said The Old Oak will be his last film – he’s 87; the golf course probably beckons. It’s not one of the ones he’ll be remembered for. At least, however, it is starkly different from the others as it’s a cheerful, sunny romcom set in Paris in the spring. I’m joshing you. It’s set in the deprived north-east where the skies are permanently grim and tensions rise due to the arrival of Syrian refugees. As you’d expect, it is a compassionate film that is respectful all round but it is also heavy-handed, soapy and sentimental, with a redemptive ending that is unearned. I wish him joy on the golf course and can only hope he has better luck keeping his eye on the ball there. 

This is Loach’s third consecutive film set in the north-east after I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You – both powerfully depressing. It is written by his long-term collaborator Paul Laverty. The central character is T.J. Ballantyne (Dave Turner), the proprietor and landlord of The Old Oak, the seriously dilapidated boozer that is hanging on by its fingertips, like the town which was once a thriving mining community. In one of the early scenes we see that the ‘K’ in the pub signage has swung upside-down on the nail, so Ballantyne takes a long pole to push it back into place. Please don’t make it swing down again as soon as his back is turned, I thought. Please, Ken, Paul, don’t do anything so obvious. Please. You’re better than that. But, no, there it goes. 

Ballantyne seems weary. He’s kept the pub afloat, just about, by ‘saying nowt’ when his few regulars gather and are vitriolic about ‘ragheads’ and start their sentences with: ‘I’m not a racist but…’ Throughout, the locals tend to declaim issues rather than speak as people actually might.