The Old Oak
A former mining village in England’s northern County Durham has seen better days, its depressed real estate making it ideal for sheltering Syrian refugees. Struggling pub owner TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner, "I, Daniel Blake") finds himself caught between compassion for those seeking haven from their war torn country and the regulars who blame the immigrants for all their ills at “The Old Oak.”
Laura's Review: B+
Director Ken Loach and his longtime screenwriter Paul Laverty ("Carla's Song," "I, Daniel Blake") complete a Northern England trilogy and the resolutely independent filmmakers’ themes and humanity shine in a fitting capper to Loach’s career (the 87 year-old filmmaker has said “The Old Oak” would be his last). Turner is perfectly cast as the man with empathy for two groups of downtrodden people, a savvily crafted protagonist whose listening gift as a bartender allows the audience an understanding of the less-than-welcoming locals.
We are thrown right into the action as volunteer Laura (Claire Rodgerson) arrives with refugees in a van owned and driven by TJ, who responds to men shouting such things as ‘You killed my brother in Iraq!’ with ‘they’re only bairns.’ A young Syrian woman who learned English working aiding nurses at a refugee camp who we will learn is Yara (Ebla Mari) takes photographs of the ugly scene, only to be aggressively challenged by Rocco (Neil Leiper, "The Angel's Share"), who grabs her camera, then breaks it when she attempts to get it back. Yara and her camera will be the lynchpin for everything that follows.
We’ve been given a hint of The Old Oak’s condition when TJ must go out in the morning and fix its sign’s fallen over ‘K’ before opening to such regulars as Charlie (Trevor Fox), Vic (Chris McGlade) and Eddy (Col Tait). As Charlie tells the others that a company renting to the refugees just bought four houses on his street for only 20% of what he’d paid for his, in walks Yara, wanting to know if TJ can help her find the man who broke her camera. She’s declared to have a ‘brass neck’ by those who feel their space has been invaded. TJ waffles on identifying Rocco, but when he finds Yara arguing with the man on the street as he walks his little dog Marra (Lola) he leads the woman back to the Old Oak and into its long shut back room. As she regards all the old historical photos on its walls, TJ finds the two old cameras which took them, but Yara is attached to her own, for reasons we and TJ will discover later, and so he offers to trade them in to get hers repaired.
It is Yara’s recognition that her mother Fatima (Amna Al Ali) and her siblings have been relocated to a place whose own residents are struggling that begins to build community. When she offers to take Linda (Ruby Bratton) home after the girl falls ill at a soccer game, she finds empty cupboards in the girl’s kitchen and is then angrily tossed out by Linda’s cursing mother Tania (Debbie Honeywood, "Sorry We Missed You") for being a stranger snooping about. But Tania will apologize later and, having seen a photograph Yara took of Linda, invite the Syrian down to the local beauty salon to take more. But conflict will raise its head again when TJ, citing liability concerns, refuses to reopen his back room as a meeting place for Charlie, Vic and Eddy yet agrees to do so when Yara and Laura propose using it to build community with dinners for the entire community, a proposed biweekly event kicked off with a showing of Yara’s photographs.
Loach and Laverty’s film encompasses so many reactions to human pain as their characters deal with suicidal thoughts, tragic loss and betrayal in addition to the general stresses of living in depressed conditions and TJ, the film’s heart, experiences all of it. While Yara provides the impetus, it is this one man’s decency that pulls the community together to grieve, most for someone they have never met. ‘When things go to shite we always look for someone to blame. We never look up, always down on the poor bastards below us,’ TJ proclaims in a sentiment that holds true across cultures and history, the truth of it a light that breaks things wide open.
As usual, Loach mixes professional actors with newcomers, all local to the area and achieves a fly-on-the-wall naturalism that is slightly undercut by some quick reversals, like Tania’s whiplash change of heart, and his use of slow fade-to-black scene transitions. The film evokes many emotions, one scene in particular devastating, and yet for all the bad behavior he’s shown us, Loach’s movie chooses hope.
Robin's Review: B
A small former mining town in the northeast of England is in the throes of conflict when the government settles Syrian refugees in the community. The owner of the last, struggling pub in town, TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner), embraces their arrival and sets his mind to help them from “The Old Oak.”
This is, according to 87-year old filmmaking maestro of over 50 works, Ken Loach, his swan song – I will believe it when I do not see his next. But, if “The Old Oak” is really his finale, he goes out with a charming “it takes a village” vibe of acceptance and tolerance.
The town, since the closing of the coal mine years ago, has fallen on very hard times. TJ, like everyone in town, has to scrabble to make ends meet when, unceremoniously, Syrian refugees arrive, disrupting the fabric of the place, especially TJ’s pub where the locals find solace in a pint or two. Now, there are strangers in town – and unwanted, at that.
One of the newcomers, Yara (Ebla Mari), a photographer, walks around town taking pictures and that offends one of the local tough guys, who breaks her camera. She does not take it lying down and demands the thug repair it – he refuses. This is where TJ steps in to help out, offering to get the camera repaired.
This begins the cycle of change – good or bad, depending on who you talk to in town – that will invoke the ire of those who resent the presence of the migrants. TJ continues to embrace his new neighbors and, as a result, begins to turn the opinion of some of the locals. But, there is still resistance as other, the regulars at the pub, view TJ as a traitor to his kind and there are consequences.
Ken Loach wears his socialist filmmaker’s heart on his sleeve as he voices his acceptance to others, seeing the good in change and in new blood in the community. I felt the honest sense of a real community where most accept the vibrant change of the newcomers. Of course, there are those with narrow minds who will not accept change, no matter what. Guess which faction is nicer?
“The Old Oak” drew me in with its authenticity of its very genuine characters, even the bad ones, and the feel of being in a close knit community facing drastic change. I felt like I was there to root for TJ, Yara and the other good people in town.
Kino Lorber released "The Old Oak" in NY on 4/5/24, expanding in subsequent weeks.
