A very good movie

Since I kept hearing some really good things about this flick (it even won the prestigious Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival), I was really eager to check it out. Well, I have been faithfully following Ken Loach for more than 20 years and, to be honest, I has been a while that the guy delivered something so impressive. Indeed, Loach managed to deliver one of his best movies which was rather unexpected as many including myself thought that his best movies were already behind him. Anyway, once again, he gave us another socially relevant  and really powerful tale and, in this case, it was even more heartbreaking as it all felt terribly familiar. Indeed, my wife has been terribly ill for already 8 years and, even though we live in the Netherlands and not in the UK, she had to face the same fight with the bureaucracy to have her invalid status acknowledged and approved. Like Daniel Blake, she had a similar interview with a so-called 'insurance specialist' who asked her if she could raise her arms and other ridiculous things like that and, just like Daniel Blake, their conclusion was that she was fit to work when at least 5 specialist doctors testified that she was in no condition to work. This battle lasted at least 4 years and what's so outrageous is that such organisations should be meant to help people but, in fact, there are in place to make sure the government's budget doesn't get red. As a result, you have some seriously sick people who spend hours, days, months dealing with this matter which eventually turns into a huge battle when they should be in fact focusing on their recovery. Well, in this movie, Ken Loach completely captured this social nightmare, the realism was just uncanny and it is not hard to believe that some women would choose to get into prostitution as ruthless gangsters and pimps might seem to be eventually more helpful than the so-called social welfare system. Anyway, to conclude, even though the damned thing was just so sad and rather depressing, it was still a really good drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

8/10