Sorry We Missed You (2019)
While quarantine has overall felt very strange, boring, and sluggish, one of the ways I have been combatting quarantine induced sadness is by watching films. During the year I am usually very busy with schoolwork and dance rehearsal, and unfortunately don’t have enough time to watch all the movies I’d like to see. But during quarantine I have been able to check many of the boxes off my film bucket list. Two months with no real structure has given me a lot of time on my hands, and I’ve come very close to watching all the movies I planned on watching during quarantine. Most of the movies that I stream at home come from huge monopoly platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, and I was so excited when I was introduced to a new streaming website, https://kinomarquee.com. What’s awesome about Kino Marquee is that it’s a streaming website that lets customers see brand new smaller films that aren’t available on other larger platforms yet. Kino Marquee is a brand new way to support small films and temporarily closed movie theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through Kino Marquee I watched Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You (2019), and it was absolutely phenomenal.
Sorry We Missed You is a heart wrenching family drama about a British working class family, the Turners. The Turners have been in a tough financial situation since the 2008 stock market crash. Ricky and Abbie Turner both work long hours and have low paying jobs, and they hardly get to spend time with their two teenage children, Liza-Jane and Sebastian. Opportunity knocks at the door when Ricky is offered a job as a self employed delivery driver for a franchise run by a very tough boss. Ricky’s new job requires a delivery van, and in order to be able to afford it, he sells his wife Abbie’s car that she uses for her work as a home care nurse. The stress that Ricky and Abbie face dealing with their jobs, debt, and two children becomes greater than themselves. This film deals with issues of class warfare and downsides of the gig economy.
Class warfare is a theme that I’ve seen in many films before Sorry We Missed You, like in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), and Martin Scoresse’s Taxi Driver (1976). Class struggle has always been present in our ever changing world, and it’s an issue that’s changing quickly with the times. Class struggle happens when the bourgeoisie class (upper class) pay the proletariat class (working class) to sell and produce goods. Class warfare can arise when the proletariat class has no control over the work they do. These struggles of the working class are exquisitely depicted in Sorry We Missed You. Main character Ricky Turner works long hours with hardly any breaks and for a boss who shows him no sympathy. When Ricky explains that he needs a week off from work because of family issues, his boss simply says that if Ricky wants to take time off, it’ll cost him more that 100£ daily, which he knows Ricky cannot afford. Throughout the entire movie, we see Ricky and Abbie being continually being taken advantage of by their employers, fueling interior and exterior struggles at work and at home.
After watching this film and learning about the other side of the gig economy, I wanted to cancel my Amazon Prime membership for good. In short, the gig economy is a labor market made distinctive by regularity of freelance work and short term contracts as opposed to a steady permanent job. Ricky’s job is working as a freelance delivery man, and while he works for a franchise, he is on his own in the sense that he pays for his white delivery van. The debt that the Turners are in completely rule their lives, no one can afford to miss days of work, school, etc. The family’s tight financial spot serves as a very realistic obstacle with no easy solutions.
I am so happy that I was introduced to https://kinomarquee.com, because I would have never been able to watch Sorry We Missed You without it! Using Kino Marquee was a refreshing change of pace from larger streaming services and I’ll be using it in the future for sure. Ken Loach’s new film is worth the watch. We’re living through a time of monopoly companies like Amazon, and watching this movie is definitely going to make me think twice when I click the two day shipping button. Movies that are relevant to modern society are such a breath of fresh air compared to the usual Hollywood glamour that we’re so often force fed. Sorry We Missed You is a raw, genuine, important piece of cinema.
Watch the trailer here.
