80
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
The film is anchored by incisive characterizations rich in integrity and heart, and by an urgent simplicity in its storytelling that's surprisingly powerful.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
It's a touching story that would seem altogether familiar if weren't also loaded with urgency.
80
Following the disappointing period dalliance of Jimmy's Hall, Ken Loach's latest I, Daniel Blake is something of a return to form. It stands as a succinct and furious raging against the dying of the light, or more accurately the snuffing of the light by a privatised and punitive system more intent on lowering the figures than caring for those in need.
75
The Playlist by Nikola Grozdanovic
The biggest lesson to take away from I, Daniel Blake is how a movie doesn’t have to be psychologically complex or cinematically dazzling to dig beyond its surface. It’s rudimentary in terms of technique, but how the film generates its power is through the themes of humanity and kindness at its center.
100
I, Daniel Blake is one of Loach’s finest films, a drama of tender devastation that tells its story with an unblinking neorealist simplicity that goes right back to the plainspoken purity of Vittorio De Sica.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
The story is told with stark and fierce plainness: unadorned, unapologetic, even unevolved. Loach’s movie offends against the tacitly accepted rules of sophisticated good taste: subtlety, irony and indirection.
60
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
While it too often sands the complications off what you sense should feel like an uncomfortably splintery issue, in its best moments, it’s a quietly fearsome piece of drama.
91
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
It’s often warm and quite funny, but is, at heart, a damning critique of the Tory government in Britain and their belt-tightening austerity measures, as well as a rallying cry for those who fall through the cracks.
50
It's pock-marked by the conservative dramatic conventions and broad political gestures that have marred much of Ken Loach's recent output.
70
Screen International by Wendy Ide
While it might not break new ground, there is no denying the potency of the film’s empathetic anguish and fury.