This is a TV short film from the UK that debuted in 2021, based on the actual situation of local care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. It revealed the helplessness and frustration of care workers, who without receive enough help from the government and have to deal with everything on their own.
Starring Jodie Comer (Sarah) and Stephen Graham (Tony), they met on the first day when Sarah had a job interview in the care home where Tony was one of the residents living there, they became good companions later in the film.
The story depicts how care workers work in the UK and particularly when the coronavirus hit in 2020, all the difficulties and lack of support that they had to face. When they had only a little information about the situation and did not receive any support from the government even during the outbreak of the virus inside the premise, how Sarah handled the emergency situation and finally how she overcame the challenges.
The team arranged for the actual care home workers to be interviewed and shared their precious experiences of working before filming, so as to deliver a convincible story to the audience.
Seemingly that every country is facing similar issues during the pandemic, and it is sympathetic to those people who are not able to take care of themselves, care worker is what they need. However, who cares about those workers? By paying the minimum wage? Though risking their life through the virus without enough protective equipment and support?
In fact, those residents in the film are having quite a nice environment provided individual rooms. When compared to those elderly care homes in Hong Kong, which would be 10 times worse. According to the law in Hong Kong, Residential Care Homes (Elderly Persons) Regulation Cap. 459A, the ratio of care workers can be up to 1:60, and the minimum area of floor space for each resident has only 6.5m2. Those residents have only a partition separating each bedroom and each care worker may need to deal with several dozens of residents at the same time, they were all facing the same problem. This is a worldwide issue, how ironic!
Fun Facts
Jodie and Stephen have known each other and become good friends since they worked together in 2012. As a talented young actress, Jodie’s performance impressed Graham and he eventually introduced her to his agent, Jane Epstein who is still helping both actors with their careers.
They coincidently connected to this film’s writer Jack Thorne separately by asking him to cooperate which they were longing for years. As both actors are Liverpudlian, it was wonderful that this time they filmed in their home town and spoke the same scouse accent.
Furthermore, the film has successfully brought out the message with resonance, it also helped Jodie Comer to win her second BAFTA’s best leading actress last year.
