The third installment in Ken Loach’s unofficial trilogy of films set in austerity-era northeastern England, “The Old Oak” looks at what happens when immigrant families from Syria arrive in an economically depressed former coal-mining town near Durham.

Set in 2016 – the year many Syrian immigrants first came to Britain – and said to be the final movie from the 87-year-old social realist filmmaker, “Oak” joins Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake” (2016) and “Sorry We Missed You” (2019) in the tradition of his career-long compassion for the marginalized and forgotten. It is unmistakably a Loach film: taciturn yet forthright (occasionally to the point of obviousness), examining life in the cracks of a fractured society with deep compassion, plain-spoken anger and, perhaps more so than in the previous two films, a shot of hope.

Like many of Loach’s films, “Oak” features a largely nonprofessional cast, using real immigrants for many of the Syrians portrayed in the film and English locals from the shooting area in smaller roles. The acting of the supporting cast varies, but the film is anchored by its two sterling central performers: Dave Turner, a retired firefighter who had small parts in “Daniel Blake” and “Sorry,” plays TJ Ballantyne, the owner of the struggling Old Oak pub where much of the film is set, and Ebla Mari, a stage actress and theater teacher from the Golan Heights, plays Yara, a talented photographer and recent immigrant, through whose eyes we watch much of the action.

The stage for Loach’s unfussy culture clash is quickly and efficiently set, with a confrontation between a busload of Syrian immigrants – set up in the seaside town thanks to a faltering economy that has cratered the rural English housing market – and the few remaining Old Oak regulars, who while away idle hours tossing off racist and xenophobic insults about the newcomers. The dialogue is ugly and at times over the top.

Paul Laverty, Loach’s longtime screenwriter, has a sure hand, grounded in documentarylike realism, and generally avoids manipulative storytelling here. But a little invective goes a long way.

Yara’s camera, broken when jostled by a hooligan (Neil Leiper), brings Yara together with TJ, a lonely divorced man whose only friend seems to be his dog, Marra (slang for “friend” in the area around the River Tyne, where the film takes place). An early encounter between Marra and two ferocious mastiffs foreshadows an unpleasant plot development, in another instance in which the screenplay could have used a lighter touch.

TJ, who normally prefers not to take sides in disputes, especially when doing so would affect his business, offers to get Yara’s camera fixed, leading to further, somewhat grudging efforts at community building. Soon the two are renovating a dilapidated backroom at the pub as a place to host free weekly meals jointly prepared by Syrian and English families, a vestige of the 1984 miners’ strike, during which families came together to support striking workers with food.

Neither Loach nor Laverty has ever been one to force an unearned happy ending, and that expectation holds true here. If “Oak” brushes up against the fuzzy calculus of melodrama, Mari and Turner always wrestle it back to earth. Turner keeps TJ rooted, his character gruff but soulful, wounded yet unbowed by life’s setbacks. Mari is equally a revelation as Yara, who approaches life with the same sensitivity as her camera: an openheartedness that is at once tough and tender.

One of the film’s most moving scenes takes place during a slide show of Yara’s images, presented for the residents of the village she now calls home, mixing pictures of her new friends with scenes of war-torn Syria. In keeping with Loach’s sparing use of music, the photo show (shot mostly by photojournalist-turned-film-photographer Joss Barratt) is accompanied by the delicate strumming of an oud.

The scene, which draws unspoken connections and contrasts between seemingly distant worlds, is emblematic of how Loach has always worked – and, by extension, how “The Old Oak” plies its matter-of-fact magic: quietly. And by showing, not telling.

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