Key Points
In so many ways, TJ Ballantyne is a classic Ken Loach hero: a working-class, middle-aged man trying to simply eke out a dignified living, but meeting obstacles at each turn a victim of unforgiving social realities that leave people like him in the dust.ge..
Like many of these Loach protagonists, TJ can't get a break even from gravity, as when he tries to fix the wooden letter K that rests above the Old Oak, the dilapidated pub he runs in a former mining town thats been in decline for decades..
Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty address this through an unusual friendship between TJ and Yara, a young Syrian woman and refugee who ends up, with her family, in the town, to the hostility of many..
During their research, Loach and Laverty noticed that many pubs in former mining towns were now shuttered..
Worse is to come for the Old Oak, which essentially becomes the main character here: a connection to a happier past for the village, a key part of a troubled present, and a source of possible hope for a harmonious future. ..
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