
Ken Loach's 'The Old Oak': A Contrived yet Fierce Call for Compassion and Solidarity.
Ken Loach's latest film "The Old Oak" is a sincere account of solidarity against anti-refugee racism in a small ex-mining town in the north of England. While lacking in artistry and three-dimensional characterization, the film's tendency to use characters exclusively as mouthpieces is dramatically tedious. Nonetheless, the chemistry between the two leads leads to a relationship rarely seen in cinema: a platonic friendship between an older man and a younger woman born of mutual respect.


