A Brix­ton Tale

The trim run­ning time of Bertrand Desrochers and Dar­ragh Carey’s A Brix­ton Tale means a com­pli­cat­ed social dra­ma is deliv­ered while sav­ing a hell of a lot of shoe leather in the process. Wealthy white YouTu­ber Leah (Lily New­mark) tracks down reserved black youth Ben­ji (Ola Ore­biyi) and secures him as the sub­ject of a doc­u­men­tary for her well-con­nect­ed aunt (Jaime Win­stone). A rela­tion­ship soon forms between the pair. How­ev­er, Leah’s infat­u­a­tion with film­ing is as potent as the love she has for Ben­ji. The pair begin a rela­tion­ship and com­pli­ca­tions swell from there on in.

There is an anx­i­ety that radi­ates from this mate­r­i­al, which is an intense, British feel-bad movie. The film’s themes of race, class and the sys­tems that help cause the divides between them are not only rel­e­vant but con­verge in a bru­tal­ly hon­est fash­ion. Gaze too long into Leah’s doe eyes and you can’t be sure of whether she com­pre­hends the pow­er of her actions, or if she’s obliv­i­ous to her sta­tus and one of the 21^st century’s most infa­mous buzz­words: priv­i­lege. It’s clear from the get-go that Ben­ji is not the stereo­typ­i­cal ​“prod­uct of his envi­ron­ment” that Leah appears hell­bent on pre­sent­ing him as.

In watch­ing Leah’s cosy sub­ur­ban home – which stands in vast con­trast to Benji’s inner-city life – the dif­fer­ences between the pair are even­tu­al­ly what draws them clos­er to each oth­er. Ben­ji is no bad­man, but his prox­im­i­ty to a cer­tain type of per­il excites Leah per­son­al­ly as much as pro­fes­sion­al­ly. When he asks why Leah nev­er invites him round to her house, the sup­posed hid­den answer is obvi­ous. In the same way, Ben­ji is referred to as mere­ly a friend among company.

The strength of A Brix­ton Tale lies in the fact that it nev­er sands down its edges. Ben­ji is a good kid. But his back­ground and race make him easy to manip­u­late and, unfor­tu­nate­ly, envi­sion­ing him as a typ­i­cal prod­uct of vio­lence and hooli­gan­ism is all too easy. His desire to show him­self as a road­man becomes crit­i­cal in the film’s lat­ter half. Leah is pret­ty and bright, but her appar­ent naivety and youth doesn’t excuse her sta­tus. Much like Lenny Abrahamson’s 2012 bleak dra­ma, What Richard Did, A Brix­ton Tale is swift in high­light­ing how much trou­ble one can avoid as long as you have the right connections.

A Brix­ton Tale’s weak­ness lies in some of its eager­ness. It’s dif­fi­cult not to feel that 15 min­utes of con­nec­tive tis­sue has been removed to keep the focus square­ly on the com­mit­ted leads. A sub­plot involv­ing men­tal health feels too tidy and nev­er hits as hard as it should. While sup­port­ing char­ac­ters are giv­en time to shine but not enough to ful­ly breathe. The film may buck­le slight­ly because of this, but it still pro­vides a for­mi­da­ble edu­ca­tion in media manip­u­la­tion and edge. It’s cer­tain­ly worth a look.