Sorry We Missed You

The downsides of the gig economy are writ large in this latest from veteran British social-realist film-maker Ken Loach. Kris Hitchen plays the volatile Ricky, affected by a downturn in the building trade, who signs up as an "independent contractor" to deliver parcels, and soon has the small print and his task-master boss running his life. Ricky is burdened by debt in providing his own white van for the job, which puts pressure on his NHS careworker wife, and ultimately affects his two secondary-school-age kids. Loach's regular screenwriter Paul Laverty provides a thoroughly researched script, detailing a grimly compelling sequence of events that bring the whole family to breaking point. In contrast to Loach and Laverty's previous offering I, Daniel Blake, the focus here is not on the iniquities of the welfare system but how global corporate culture now promises unskilled labour flexible conditions only to exploit them for ruthless profit. It's a chastening portrait of the modern workplace, given added emotional impact by its affecting domestic asides, which surely stands comparison with the best of Loach's storied filmography.