Eight years have passed since Grenfell Tower went up in flames, killing 72 people, said Vicky Jessop in The London Standard. The public inquiry laid out the litany of failings that led to this appalling disaster; now, Netflix has summed them all up in this searing documentary.
The sheer variety of ways in which the residents were failed beggars belief, from the construction company Rydon's decision to save £5,000 by using cladding that its manufacturer, Arconic, knew to be flammable, to the failure to enforce safety standards because of David Cameron's war on regulation, and the London Fire Brigade's lack of preparation. To tell the story, Olaide Sadiq brings together an array of witnesses, including activists, survivors and firefighters, whose grief "bleeds off the screen".
Directed with "forensic" skill, this is a compassionate and righteously angry documentary, said Phil de Semlyen in Time Out: "If it doesn't leave you furious, you're not paying attention."
Sadiq chronicles the events of the night via news footage, amateur videos and audio from the emergency services, to haunting effect. In the aftermath, ex-housing minister Eric Pickles comes across as particularly odious – misremembering the death toll and telling the public inquiry not to waste his time.
What sets "Grenfell: Uncovered" apart, said Nick Hilton in The Independent, is that it doesn't simply offer another "affecting tribute", it is a film that "wants to play the blame game. Much of what went wrong at Grenfell, it concludes, was a failure to learn the lessons of the past."
Grenfell: in the words of survivors review
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