Reviews

I have never given a film a 10 on this website. A 10 would imply perfection and that should not exist. About an hour into I, Daniel Blake I paused the film and said that it was flawless, by the end I had some tiny quibbles that would make it a 9.5 if I had my nastiest, most quibble-orientated, pedantic critic hat on. IMDB does not allow fractional star scores, it deserved the 10.

The performances by David Johns and Hayley Squires are magnificent, the screenwriting by Paul Laverty is wonderful. The film pulls you in, absorbs you and refuses to allow you to look away. The brilliance is not that it is harrowing, not that it shocks or sickens, it is that it's relateable.

I'm reminded of Requiem for a Dream, a film that grips by the sheer horror that it depicts, but in I, Daniel Blake there is no horror of the abstract, every character could be someone you walk past on the street on any day of your life. The gut punch comes from the fact there is no gut punch, the normality is infinitely stronger.

This film is beautiful, tragic, desperate, funny and ultimately speaks to people trying to live their lives. Instead of continuing to gush all I will say is watch this, you will have no regrets.

To borrow the words of the previous reviewer, that went from gritty to gash very fast.

This show had the guts to kill main characters and the skill to keep you on the edge of your seat, but throws that away with an anaemic ending. I was expecting the gut punch of a shocking death, of a twist, of a conclusion from left field that I didn't expect and that would be fitting of the episodes that came before. Unfortunately it seems that the writers couldn't muster that.

Bodyguard is still a quality series, it's just a shame that they couldn't stick to their guns for the conclusion. I was also waiting for a car bomb to take my breath away, what I got was the credits rolling and a distinct feeling that there could have been more.