This British film will probably draw attention because it's the directorial debut of two-time Oscar nominee Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah and Get Out). Those nominations had Kaluuya playing an African American and telling stories about Black people in the United States. Yet, Kaluuya was born and raised in London, England, and for ten years before his breakthrough in Get Out (2017), Kaluuya worked in British television. It makes sense that for his directorial debut, he returns to his roots and tells a story about Black people in London that also has a connection to a story line from British TV.
Recently, Steve McQueen, the Afro-British filmmaker who won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave (2013), did a series called Small Axe (2020), which was about Black people in London, particularly those in the West Indies community in the 1960's to the 80's. A significant chunk of that was about the relationship between Black people and the police in terms of the discrimination and oppression that the Black people faced. A portion of Small Axe was also about the struggles of working-class and impoverished people of color. This film picks up on those themes, but Small Axe isn't the only British TV show that Kaluuya mimics.
Kane Robinson stars as Isaac aka "Izi," a Black man living in a future London but not too far into the future. He lives in an area of the city called "The Kitchen," which seems to be a ghetto or an impoverished section that is overly crowded. Specifically, the section contains an apartment building or a housing estate where people live that used to be owned by the government but now has been privately bought. The new owners want the occupants gone or evicted, so the police or security are sent to vacate the occupants, but some occupants lock themselves in their apartments and the police can't enter individual flats.
Izi is one of those squatters. Yet, he's making plans to leave this area and move into an apartment building in a nicer or wealthier neighborhood. He's applied for a single-occupancy apartment, but he's currently on a waiting list, so he has to last in this ghetto until then. The reason he's able to apply is because he has a job at Life After Life, a funeral services company that's earning him enough to move away.
Jedaiah Bannerman, in his debut, co-stars as Benji, a teenage boy whose mother dies and Life After Life handles her funeral. Benji doesn't have any other family and he notices that Izi is the only person who attends the funeral. This makes Benji think Izi is his father, given that Benji never knew his dad. Benji latches onto Izi and tries to spend time with Izi, but Izi is very apprehensive. He never answers the question if he is in fact Benji's dad, not until the end.
However, all of this might feel familiar to watchers of British TV. Robinson is better known as "Kano," a rapper who has released six albums. He hasn't done a lot of acting, but he's probably recognizable more from his role in the British TV series Top Boy (2011). Top Boy was what many called the British equivalent to HBO's The Wire (2002). It's clear that Kaluuya was likely a fan of that series because the story line between Izi and Benji feels very similar to a story line from Top Boy where a Black teenager who's practically orphaned starts to bond with a semi-related Black man in his 30's, in opposition to him getting involved in a street gang.
The performances between Robinson and Bannerman are very effective. We feel the bond, which is akin to father and son. However, Kaluuya's script doesn't fill in the gaps, such as the back stories of both of their characters. For Benji, he's a teenager who wouldn't have much, but more fleshing out for Izi could have been helpful. For example, we don't get the answer as to whether Izi is Benji's father until the very end and I mean literally the very last scene before it all ends. More information about Izi's life prior to the start of this narrative would've been crucial.
Rated R for language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 48 mins.
Available on Netflix.
