Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Ordinary people fighting back is an old story, but not a tired one. This week I’m looking at three new movies — one from northern England, one from southern England, and one from India — about people confronting injustice. There are women fighting the courts, a poor man fighting the oligarchs, and a lonely man trying to stop his town’s gradual collapse.

The Old Oak

Dir: Ken Loach (my interview: 2020)

It’s 2016 in a seaside village in northern England. TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) is the publican of The Old Oak, one of the few gathering places left standing. But like the town — once a thriving coal pit, but now impoverished and depressed — the pub is not what it used to be. It has few customers aside from a few regulars. The sign is sagging, and half of the building is no longer used.  TJ lives above the pub; he’s lonely and pessimistic. His son won’t speak to him, and he has only a little dog to keep him company. But when a group of Syrian refugees arrives in town, TJ decides to help. Alongside Laura (Claire Rodgerson) he distributes furniture and food — donated through local churches and unions — to the newcomers. They are grateful, but some people resent it. Why are they helping refugees when local kids are going without food and heating? Syrian kids are bullied in schools, and a young photographer Yara (Ebla Mari)’s camera is broken.

What can they do to bring the community together? Together with Yara, Laura, and dozens of volunteers, they reopen a long boarded up section of the Old Oak to provide a place where people can come to eat and spend time together. The photographs on the walls recall the coal miners strike of Thatcher’s England: If you eat together, you stick together, says one sign.  But can they overcome old prejudices to form new friendships? Or will it all fall apart?

The Old Oak is a wonderfully poignant and deeply-moving drama that deals with big issues but on a personal scale. It looks at racism, poverty, unions and scabs, and how geopolitics affect us all.  Like all of Ken Loach’s movies, it  looks at imperfect people from multiple viewpoints. Some you like and end up hating, others seem like villains but you find out later they’re good people. Lots of grey, no black and white (aside from the photographs Yara takes.)

Once again, the script is by Loach’s longtime collaborator Paul Laverty, and the ensemble cast includes both professionals and first-time actors, many hired at the location.

It shows the real Britain, warts and all, not the shiny tourist-attraction you see in Hollywood movies. It’s a tear jerker, with more than one heartbreaking scenes. But it still leaves room for hope. The Old Oak may be Ken Loach’s final film, so you should get out and see it. I really like this film.

Monkey Man

Co-Wri/Dir: Dev Patel

Kid (Dev Patel) is a man with a vengeance — to punish those whose crimes he witnessed as a small child. Raised by his mother in a forest in rural India, he now lives in an unnamed megalopolis in the mythical state of Yatana (= torment, anguish). It is ruled by a god-king followed by throngs of devoted cult-like followers. They kick farmers off their land for corporate profit and persecute minorities with impunity. Kid earns his money as a boxer, beaten up regularly by bigger, stronger men. In the ring, he conceals his face behind a monkey mask, in honour of the god Hanuman whose story his mother had told him as a child. Following a complex scheme, he somehow manages to get work inside an exclusive nightclub ruled by a woman named Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar). She warns him to never disobey her or step out of his class. He gradually works his way up the latter until he makes it into the kitchen. His goal? To shoot  a corrupt police chief named Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher). But his plans all fail, and he ends up a nearly-dead fugitive, his body floating in a canal. He is rescued and brought back to health by a temple dedicated to Shiva, and run by androgynous priests.

They admire that he, an outcaste, dares to fight authority.  But he needs the strength and skill if he wants to succeed. So, to the sounds of a tabla drum, he trains in the temple, gradually building up his stamina and muscles until he its ready to face his enemies to the death once again. But does he even have a chance against the powers that be?

Monkey Man is a class-struggle action-thriller about one man’s quest for personal vengeance and his plan to overthrow by force corrupt and autocratic leaders. It’s told using intricate plotting, involving dozens of people cooperating for a single goal. And it interweaves visions and sounds, like a  child’s picture book, an elaborate mural, and the thumping of a tabla music. There’s a lot of content to digest. The problem is, a large part of the movie consists of chases and violent fights, and they’re not very good. Blurred shots using a jiggly, hand-held camera may be artistic, but they’re unpleasant and hard to look at. Seasickness is not a valid substitute for good fight choreography.

I admire Dev Patel’s first attempt as a director and his transformation into an action hero, but Monkey Man doesn’t cut it.

Wicked Little Letters

Dir: Thea Sharrock

It’s the 1920s in Littlehampton, Sussex, a small town in southern England. Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) is a middle aged educated woman who still lives with her strict parents in a tiny row house. She reads the bible and quotes its teachings; basically, she’s an uptight prig. She shares a wall with Rose (Jessie Buckley) a migrant from the Emerald Isle. She is fond of drinking and carousing, can swear a blue streak, and is often seen wandering in just a slip outside her home. Rose likes her live-in boyfriend Bill (her husband died in WWI) but most of all, adores her daughter Nancy (Elisha Weir). But her neighbour, Edith’s father Edward Swan (Timothy Spall) despises Rose and her libertine ways, and blames her for everything going wrong in Littlehampton. They live in a tenuous detente, until everything changes when Edith receives a piece of hate mail. The unsigned letter is filled with cruel insults and vulgar words.

And when the letters pile up, the police come to investigate. They arrest Rose for the nasty letters and throw her in jail, despite her protests of innocence. The press picks up the story and it becomes a national scandal. But not everyone believes Rose is guilty. A small group of women, led by Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan), think Rose is innocent and set out to prove it. But can they find the true culprit before the trial? And what will happen to Nancy if her mother ends up behind bars?

Wicked Little Letters is a delightful dark comedy, based on a true story; apparently this was a hot topic 100 years ago. Little is the key word: little letters, Littlehampton, and the kind of petty quarrels that can blow up into serious events. This is a movie that knows it’s own boundaries and sticks to them perfectly, without veering off into remote tangents, flashbacks or lengthy soliloquies. It’s tight, set in tiny homes around town, and in the courthouse and jail. The acting is wonderful — everyone’s a character. Olivia Colman and Jesse Buckley previously co-starred in The Lost Daughter, but I like this one much better. And though it’s a period drama set in 1920s England, it uses colourblind casting, with many roles played by black and brown actors, without racial or ethnic issues ever entering the story (except, of course, Rose being Irish in England).

If you’re looking for a fun night out, I think you’ll like this one.

Wicked Little Letters, Monkey Man and The Old Oak all open this weekend in Toronto: check your local listings.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.