Martin Scorsese, who turns 81 next month, recently gave an interview in which he spoke extensively about his own mortality. “I don’t think it’s a matter of one last great thing,” he concluded. “It’s a matter of continuing, exploring.” It was hard not to think of the great American director’s words while watching The Old Oak, the (supposed) last film by the great British director Ken Loach.
There’s always been a presumption that someone’s last work should be treated as final testament (hence Quentin Tarantino’s obsession with bowing out after only 10 films), but, here especially, that obsession with legacy feels limiting. The Old Oak is far from Loach’s best work. It’s not his angriest film, nor is it his most narratively or politically compelling. But it is the honest product of an artist who has committed himself, since his 1967 debut Poor Cow, to holding the powerful to account and illuminating the stories they would rather we ignore.
