Movie Review - I Daniel Blake

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2016 – Spoiler alerts I have been very keen to see Ken Loach’s acclaimed and blistering attack on the hateful British Welfare system since it came out. Today I finally got a chance. Though fiction, the story is very much based on fact and many scenes reflect things I have experienced first-hand. Daniel Blake is a Geordie carpenter six years short of retirement when a heart attack leads his doctors to declare him unfit for work for the foreseeable future. Blake applies for sickness benefits but without even consulting his GP’s the DWP declare him fit for work, and force him into taking jobseeker’s Allowance (which I am on myself). This means he must actively seek employment 35 hours a week and declare his search on the welfare system website so his job coaches can inspect his progress. The trouble is that while a very good carpenter / joiner, Blake is utterly useless on computers. This is ultimately used to further ensnare him in red tape by the pitiless system. Blake is a compassionate man, and he befriends a struggling single Mum and her two children when her benefits are stopped for no reason other than her being a few minutes late for her first appointment, being a newcomer to the city. Despite Blake’s help, she is driven to malnutrition, a doomed attempt at shop-lifting and prostitution (from which Blake rescues her). Finally granted an appeal hearing ad promised that his chances of winning are good, it is too late for Blake as his heart finally gives up due to the intense stresses he has had to endure. Heart-breaking and a film to make people angry, and a vital education for anyone who thinks claiming welfare is an easy task for scroungers. The central performances by Dave Johns and Hayley Squires are electric. I, Arthur Chappell