Review: I, Daniel Blake

It may be tempting to plant Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winner I, Daniel Blake in the "white man's burden" category, the simple story of a strong central character helping out new found friends. But it would also be wrong. The burdens on screen are not sole, not few, but multiple – everyone's positions and countless emotions are entirely understood and keenly felt from beginning to end. If this is to be the rightly renowned film maker's swansong, he's going out with a bang.

Daniel Blake, brilliantly played by stand-up comedian Dave Johns, is a man able to make a difference to others but not, for the good of his health, able to be employed. A widowed carpenter of almost sixty, Daniel is pronounced unfit for work by his doctor following a heart attack and is left to face the bureaucracy of the Department Of Work And Pensions. As he does not qualify for the sickness benefit he requires, he can either endure waiting for his appeal or risk his health by claiming Job Seekers' Allowance and looking for work.

Meanwhile, single mother Katie (an exceptional performance from actor and playwright Hayley Squires) has had her own benefits stopped due to a wrong turn on the way to the Job Centre – leaving her with no electricity, no heating and not enough food for her son and daughter. Through frustration and dilemmas, Daniel, Katie and Katie's children bond.

Daniel's and Katie's plot strands are entirely engrossing, each told as battles in a machinic, restrictive, individualistic society where compassion and integration of the genuine kind is alarmingly but truthfully rare. In a striking scene at a food bank, Katie finds herself compelled to start eating directly from a can, and it is beyond devastating to watch. She cries, and so do we.

Similarly, Daniel is not given enough assistance in a computer orientated world that has left him in the past. "We're digital by default", he is told. "I'm pencil by default", he rightly replies.

We laugh, but thanks to Johns, Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty, we fully grasp Daniel's frustration. It's rare to find a film that so gracefully and pointedly presents the struggles and decisions that we would prefer to neither know or think about, but must be depicted nonetheless. How much more could be achieved with just a little extra attention and thought? It's heartbreaking.

The systematic containment is not solely confined to Daniel, Katie and the unemployed. One takes some comfort from knowing that the Daniels and Katies of this world are not alone, but it is also discomforting to ponder one's actions when in a position of authority.

How willing, for example, would someone really be to risk being told off like a kindly female employee at the Job Centre is for being sympathetic to Dan's plight? No matter how righteous and moral her actions may be, she too is bound by a structure it is not so easy to transcend – as is her own superior.

Loach and Laverty do not shun from the occasional, effective use of symbolism and triumphalism – the former when Daniel is seen standing near a glamorous advertising poster, the latter in a grand near finale featuring graffiti and a wall. Both are briefly viewed through an onrushing bus in traffic, the crowd on board signifying indifference to class division and protest despite both being as stark as they have ever been.

I, Daniel Blake is about identity, and what one stands to lose or gain from adhering themselves to principles, but it is also a close-to-home character drama about working to live and growing to love. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll squirm, but most importantly, you will relate – and for that reason I can't recommend the film highly enough.

Simon Fallaha

I, Daniel Blake is on general release now.