Based on the novel by David Chariandy, this film won a dozen trophies at the 11th Canadian Screen Awards. It won Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay for Clement Virgo who is known for directing a variety of TV shows, including Greenleaf (2016) and The Book of Negroes (2015). This film also won Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Original Score, Best Hair, Best Casting, Best Supporting Performance, Best Lead Performance and Best Motion Picture. It's ironic because this film is set in a district of Toronto, Ontario, called Scarborough, which has a large immigrant population and large minority population, and at the 10th Canadian Screen Awards, a film called Scarborough by Shasha Nakhai, which is set in the same district, also is a coming-of-age tale and involves a queer character.
The difference between Virgo's film and Nakhai's is that instead of Asian characters, Virgo's film focuses on Black characters. Instead of telling the story from the perspective of parents, Virgo's film has the point-of-view from the children. Chariandy's parents immigrated from Trinidad. His father is South Asian. His mother is African. Both were working-class people. Chariandy noticed that Scarborough had a bad reputation for being crime-ridden, even though statistics didn't support this false perception. His book intended to address this contradiction, which can't be done without acknowledging race relations, resulting in this film being a kind of Black Lives Matter film.
Lamar Johnson is best known for HBO's The Last of Us (2023) for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award but he was also in another Black Lives Matter film called The Hate U Give (2018). Here, he plays Michael Joseph, a Black kid living in Scarborough in 1991. He resides in an apartment with his single mom and older brother. He's more shy and more introverted than his brother. He's also not as aggressive or even as confident as his sibling. He's likely more scared of the world than his brother.
Virgo's narrative jumps back-and-forth in time throughout Michael's life. It skips ahead ten years to 2001 and it also leaps back about a decade to the 80's when Michael and his sibling were prepubescent, little boys. However, the pivot point appears to be 1991 when something monumental and traumatic happens. That trauma is easy to guess, but the climax toward the end is revealing what that incident is. The majority of the narrative is exploring the cause and effect of that happening.
Aaron Pierre (The Underground Railroad and Krypton) co-stars as Francis Joseph, the older brother to Michael. In school, Francis has shop class and woodworking. After he leaves school, he gets a job at a hardware store. Instead of carpentry, he mainly is a janitor, sweeping up sawdust. He didn't get much respect from his teachers or people at the store. His dream is to be a music producer. He has a pretty, eclectic, vinyl collection. His best friend and lover, Jelly, played by Lovell Adams-Gray (Power Book II: Ghost) is a DJ who Francis wants to promote. Francis knows that he has to be or at least play the role of this tough guy who shows no fear and takes care of everybody, including his mom.
Marsha Stephanie Blake (When They See Us and Orange Is the New Black) also co-stars as Ruth, the mother to Francis and Michael. She's an immigrant from Jamaica. She's raising the boys by herself. It looks as though she works as a nurse somewhere in Toronto. She sometimes has to do double shifts and can't afford childcare, so she often has to leave the boys alone in their apartment. She knows that the boys are having nightmares due to watching the news, but she tries to assure them of their safety but she's not blind to the dangers.
She tries to lock them in the apartment. Through Virgo's direction and the production design, that apartment becomes a character in the narrative. The way Virgo frames hallways and corners really accentuates the confines or even the distance that can exist in this one space. Virgo's film is not so claustrophobic. Virgo's camera does go outside the apartment. We're allowed glimpses of the neighborhood. We see Francis and Michael at an electrical tower, which looms over Scarborough, as well as a grassy area under a bridge, along a creek, which contrasts the hardness and softness within the area and within the boys. It underlines how the boys have to themselves navigate being hard or soft in terms of how they survive their circumstances.
Kiana Madeira (After We Fell and Fear Street Part One: 1994) rounds out the cast as Aisha, the love interest to Michael. She also has an interest in music, but she eventually pursues a career in computer programming. Yet, she's the one who pushes the mental health aspect. There is an issue regarding the mental health of one particular character that becomes a significant focus in the narrative. Arguably, the mental health of the two boys is also significant, not only the fear but the isolation and constant frustration.
Because of titular and thematic similarities, Sally El Hosaini's My Brother the Devil (2013) was a reference that came to mind. In terms of similarities, either visually or textually, Steve McQueen's Small Axe (2020) also came to mind. El Hosaini's film centers on two, male siblings, one older and one younger. The younger one looks up to the older one who mainly puts on a macho act while being secretly gay, as both grapple with poverty and crime and coming out an immigrant home. McQueen's film is actually a series about the Black and immigrant community around the same time period as this one where a significant portion is akin to being a Black Lives Matter narrative, depicting the relationship between the police and Black people.
Virgo's film is effective in the same way in getting us to understand and see clearly the lives being lost. This film is also effective in showing us the aftermath of how those left behind can be ruined to a degree and what it might take for those left behind to recover and hopefully move past the pain.
Not Rated but for Ages 14 and Up.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 59 mins.
Available on Netflix.