Director Ken Lodge is a famous British film director. His socially conscious realism style makes his films sociologically meaningful. Therefore, he is called the "conscience" of British films. The various social issues shown under his lens make Chinese audiences feel the same way, and it seems to be a mirror reflecting reality.
story background:
After the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, a large number of low-level wage earners could not repay their high debts and lost their real estate. The male protagonist, Ricky, was unable to pay his debts because he lost his job. Not only was the house repossessed, but the family was also burdened with huge debts. After Ricky found a new job delivering courier services, in order to make ends meet, he took out a loan and bought a truck to start his new career. I thought that I was going to the bright road, but what Ricky didn't expect was "the harder you work, the more you fall into the bottomless abyss."
Biography:
He is obviously a "partner" in the boss's mouth, so-called "self-emplyoed", but Ricky works 6 days a week, 14 hours a day, and is so busy that he can only rely on mineral water bottles to collect urine. Even if his son entered the police station, he was trapped in the shackles of "difficulty in asking for leave". Started from the vision of making 200 pounds a day, and finally collapsed under the capital pressure of "paying 1000 pounds".
His wife, Abby, is a carer, a representative of the "gig economy". To and fro in the city, the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled, to serve them. There is a detail in the movie. Every time Abby walks into a client's house, he applies a layer of ointment under his nose. We only know after seeing it, because he has to cook for the client, take a bath, and even make feces and urine. It smells too bad!
In order to raise money for her husband to buy a van, Abby sold the commuter car and had to travel by bus. It made Abby, who was already exhausted, even more distressed. When the client asked about the working hours, he asked in surprise, "Shouldn't it be an 8-hour workday?" No matter how kind, forbearing, and gentle people, like Abby, finally loudly questioned her husband and boss in front of everyone in the hospital, " fuck you".
There is no doubt that the son and daughter have become "left-behind children". His teenage son is full of doubts about his future in college, going from a good student with good grades to a troubled teenager who skips school and steals. The daughter is undoubtedly considerate, accompanies her father to deliver the courier, and tries to ease the bad father-son relationship. However, when she was only 11 years old, she had already started to lose sleep.
The narration of the whole film is calm and realistic, without too much rendering, but I feel distressed when I see it in front of the camera. The predicament of individuals under the control of capital, the vortex of life that the people at the bottom cannot escape. So real, so real!
How similar is the life of the Ricky family to that of the 996 middle-aged and young people in China? In the past 20 years, against the backdrop of the historical wave of urbanization, everyone has flocked to big cities to concentrate on big things. When the urbanization process has been completed, what will happen to this group of victims who have been rolled up? In the first-line, quasi-first-line, high housing loans, in order to repay the loan and start a life like a gyro, the individual loses a sense of control over the future, the lack of family life, and the era of GDP, who will talk about "happiness"?
Ah finally! The word "happiness" was officially proposed by the high-level executives. How can unhappy people regain happiness? Is it okay to retreat to the third or fourth line? Does your hometown’s current economic development match your current occupation? Can you really go back?
At the end of the movie, the reality makes people laugh bitterly. Ricky got up at 6:00 and started the truck with scars all over his body. He didn't go to the hospital to get the test report. He wanted to continue to work for the sake of his family and to pay off his debts. The family tried to stop it and watched the truck go away. Can this family really get better?
"Sorry, We Missed You", this translation is great, but also sad. The working-class struggling to survive, missing their families, is this society missing us? Call for "seeing" to the bottom working class, and say "sorry" to those who missed it.
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