During the infancy of my career, many a time, being the most junior of the team, I usually ended up having to see poor patients who just made it to the clinic at closing time. I soon came to know that they were living far from civilisation, deep in rubber or palm oil estate. Coming to the hospital meant getting up at four in the morning, preparing breakfast for the school-going children and being able to get on the first 6 o'clock morning bus to town. Invariably, they would be delayed. The transport out to the main road would not turn up. Perhaps, the feeder bus would break down or the bus that they had to change left earlier.

They would eventually reach the hospital close to noon. After getting an earful for not keeping to their time, they would have to seen by the junior most doctor of the team. The senior ones would have left the clinic for more pressing needs. Unable to make a definitive plan of medical treatment for them, these patients who would require most of the expertise from the medical team ended up discarded by the system. They would be given another appointment; the whole ritual needs to be repeated. On top of all these, as they are daily wage earners, absence from work meant the loss of a day's earning.

I thought all these slave-like working conditions would end as the world changed. With globalisation, workers were promised working conditions and preservation of unassailable rights of the workers. Marx's dream of working for sustenance and having leisure time to enjoy the reason for their existence, they thought, would of fruition with the gig economy. They do a gig when and if they want. The workers would be their own boss. They work for themselves; not for the bosses or company. They do not work for a company but with the company. What the company failed to highlight were the fine prints, the exclusion clauses and the penalty they were to be imposed if specific rules are not followed.

Fast forward, and workers realise that the whole economy is just a scam. The same old economic ideology is just re-packaged. The same plot of scheming the poor to feed the rich is in full force. The workers continue breaking their back until a new horizon emerges. Who knows what else would they promise the next time. Meanwhile, like Sisyphus, the unendowed have the find simple pleasures within their unending cycle of hardship, a flicker of hope, resolution, pain and the curse of repeating it all over again.

Still reeling with debts from the 2008 economic downturn, Ricky thought he found a sure way to end his financial woes. The promise of good returns as an independent despatch services provider, he felt his hard work was the only thing that separated him from economic independence. For that, however, he needed to purchase a pickup van. For its down payment, he had to sell off the family car in which, the wife, Abbie, a home care nurse moved around to meet her patients.

Soon everyone realises that it is not all hunky-dory. Ricky has to spend long hours at work. Abbie finds it taxing to meet her demanding schedule. Their two teenage children are left to their devices. The parents are unable to meet up to their school and their children's emotional needs. Ricky's woes only accumulate. He has to pay damages for lost items which are not covered by insurance and to work despite his injuries after mugged.

It looks like the dependence on others will spill over on to the next generation. Their dependency on their digital hand-held devices is not mere addiction. It has become their essential tools to do their school, learning, communication and more. The digital world is another platform that is manipulated by the economic giants to make people fall at the service providers' feet. This is yet another doublespeak and the dehumanising trap of the neoliberal economy. Instead of building an antifragile society that grows stronger with every stress that is hurled upon them, we will be left with a brittle one, needing support at the mere thought of pressure.

Again, our electron microscopic friend, COVID-19 has shown us the fragility of the gig economy. Being locked down for two weeks may be excellent for family time and bonding, but neither bring in the cash nor pays the bills.

The sobering "Sorry We Missed You" is a British 100-minute movie that premiered back in 2019, but took until recently (2020) to make it to German theaters. The director is Ken Loach and as I really really loved his previous work, the BAFTA-winning "I, Daniel Blake", I was genuinely curious about his newest release, also because he collaborated again with writer Paul Laverty. Overall, I think the outcome is a step down quality-wise, but clear evidence that Loach, in his 80s now, still has the gift to come up with quality movies. His works are frequently about people from society who have to go through hardship, especially financial, and this is also very true here. This is the story of a man who has literally tried every job in the book as we find out right away (even if his explanation how the other guys weren't willing to work hard sounded strange) and eventually ends up working for a mail/package delivery service. As I have a bit of a background myself in said area of work, this made things even more interesting and I got more curious about the film. Well, after seeing how things turned out here, I can only say I am really happy to have my job and not the main character's. You can definitely say it is close to modern slavery what we witness here. And it leaves its toll on the protagonist for sure as his and his wife's desperate attempts to make enough money to offer their children a better life really make things more difficult with the children too. The girl is fine overall with the exception of her taking the keys and a reference about her peeing in bed. It's nothing to be proud of, both, but nowhere near the level of the son of the family, who is a bit older and really struggles hard, which partially has to do with puberty. When the girl he likes moves away, things go south even further. He almost never goes to school anymore, has a fight when he is at school for once, in which the teacher who tried to intervene got injured, wastes his days as a graffiti "artist", demolishes the house ith his "art" and finally even steals and consequently is arrested by the police. Near the end, he gets hit by his father in the face because the latter thinks it was him who stole the keys. The family is really hitting rock-bottom at this point and there is no solution near.

The mother has her own struggles too as she works like 14 hours a day taking care of elderly and disabled people, a job that is already as exhausting as it gets for "only" 8 hours. And the fact that she has to sell the car makes things even more complicated for her. At the center of it all is the father though. He really has to go through many unpleasant situations, some of them with his boss, and the worst moment is probably when his cargo includes mobile phones and he is attacked and beaten up. He can deal with one, but he cannot deal with three. And the urine scene is of course as humiliating as it gets too. But there is still some upside to it all, namely that despite all these struggles the family sticks together and they have each other and you can see that there is a lot of love here and for example negative things said between the two parents are a rarity and both apologize immediately afterwards. His close connection with his wife is also shown by the fact that he immediately talks to her about what happened with the urine. And his wife stands up to him when she grabs the phone at the ambulance when her man's boss calls and says he has to pay quadruple-digit figures for what happened during the attack (not the phones, but other parts from the freight (IDs?) and the little computer especially that was broken). And of course, he wants his employee back tomorrow at work immediately despite all the wounds, let alone the shock. Rarely have I seen a film, in which there was a profession that would be pure horror to me and probably this one tops the list of jobs I could never imagine doing. Especially not with the bald guy in charge of the team. He acts as if he is a professional, but he is clearly a stone-cold brute, if not a psychopath. And when he talks to the central character being asked about a 3-day leave, we also find out that he has a bit of a god complex it seems. It's between the lines 100%, but also explicit at the end when he says he deserves that people build a statue in his honor. Early on, the other guy who gets sacked is one that we may feel critical about initially, but eventually, it is very clear that he is just another victim. This company does not intend to employ people for years, but really just wear them down for a few months, swallow them and then spit them out when they are incapable of working any longer. It did become a more and more serious film the longer it went. Early on, it still felt lighter with the main character speaking about football to the people he meets when delivering the packages or also the scene with his daughter and the old lady is a bit on the sweet side. But immediate bummer there as well because the boss forbids that he keeps bringing his daughter to the job. One slightly serious moment. Another is when he meets the guy who initially refuses to accept the package for a neighbor because he can't stand him, then eventually does, but refuses to say his name because he suspects the government is collecting all these data. This scene really showed how the main character is really at everybody's mercy.

All in all, I don't think this is as good as Daniel Blake, but really only because the latter was so marvellous. This one here is "only" a good movie, but I certainly recommend checking it out and if Loach can keep this level of quality, then I am all for him still making films until he is 100. It was a haunting film and those who are depicted in this one and his works in general deserve that their voices are heard. And if it happens thanks to Loach and Laverty, then I am all for it. Loach never really has big name actors in his movies, at least not the recent ones, but the cast here is still rock-solid without any exceptions. They are easy to like and easy to hate thanks to the convincing ways in which they are written and also how they are portrayed. Sometimes it almost felt like a documentary. The lead character is played by Kris Hitchen. He is good, but the real standout to me was Debbie Honeywood, who played the wife and she was just awesome, such a heartfelt performance really. So you see Loach cannot only get mesmerizing performances out of male actors. I am glad she also got a bit of awards recognition, even if she deserved much more. Most of it went to Loach himself and that is fine too. I am glad this one scored some awards here and there or at least nominations. By the way, this film felt so British to me that I am really surprised to read that this is a co-production from the UK with France and Belgium. The film also goes out on a high note that is actually a pretty depressing moment as we see him drive off still with this horrible job because he absolutely needs it and there is no other option. Even his wife and kids cannot stop him and he really should not be driving with these injuries. But there is a reason he is self-employed. His boss is 100% on the safe side this way. So not a happy ending, but honestly it would not have fit this film in my opinion at all. Loach is known to go the realistic way, even if it means a deeply unhappy ending and there have been even unhappier than this one here, which may be difficult to believe, but it is true. Still I can only repeat myself: The way how the family still sticks together (or again) after all that happened is at least a slightly happy occurrence. It seems nothing can really break them apart and I hope it stays this way. It is easy to feel for the characters here. So yeah, had everything else about this film been as good as Honeywood, I probably would have given an additional two stars even. This would have elevated the film into the best films of 2019 for me, which would have been a bit too much. But even the way it actually turned out, there is no hesitation for me in giving this one a thumbs-up and positive recommendation. Go see this film, but not when you're in the mood for something uplifting. Very much recommended.

A bit of misery porn from director Ken Loach about a family eking out an existence in working class England.

The dad is a delivery driver, the mom is a care worker. Both are victims of the dehumanizing effect of the gig economy that treats workers as if they're disposable drones. This is a bleak film lacking in any kind of hope that the lives of people like this will or even can improve. Even the occasional moment of sweetness, like a scene where the dad brings his daughter with him on his delivery route so that they can actually spend some time together, ends badly when he gets in trouble for it. It's by all objective reckoning an exceptionally well made movie, with terrific performances from its cast, but your enjoyment of it will depend on how much you're willing to wallow in other people's misery.

Grade: A-