'Education:' Steve McQueen's 'Small Axe' Film Is His Most Tender Work To Date [Review]

I was born with a speech impediment. For years, I received speech therapy in special education. I don’t remember why, but for some reason, for instance, I would trip over the word “yellow” as though, ironically, my tongue was strapped by velcro. By the age of seven, I was transferred from special education to general, but still took supplemental speech therapy. By second grade, I was one of only eight students in my grade reading at an expected reading level. One day, my teacher took us to the back of the class, and in a type of triage, explained that he’d give us a fighting chance by directing the majority of his teaching efforts toward us eight. The rest were too far behind. They would need special education.

The phrase “too far behind” has always stuck in my mind. That a nine-year-old would be skipped over as though mortally wounded. That they would be made to feel lesser, slower, or inferior even though they showed just as much talent in other areas as I. My story comes from an African-American perspective, of course. And Steve McQueen’s originates from a British. For four films, in his Amazon streaming “Small Axe” anthology, the Academy-Award winning director has highlighted the inequalities, such as extralegal policing and judicial overreach — which have been enforced upon black West Indians. In the anthology’s concluding film, he calls attention to education. Following a black child relegated to a special school for suspicious reasons, McQueen’s coming-of-age work simply titled “Education” exhibits his warmest, tenderest filmmaking yet. And by its conclusion, reaches for the celestial.

Kingsley Smith (Kenyah Sandy) is twelve-years-old. From his brown glasses to his tiny prep-school tie, he is like any other child from all outward appearances. Except, Kingsley can’t read. When called in class to read “Of Mice and Men,” for instance, he hesitates over the words like I once tripped over “yellow.” His struggles cause him to seek attention by acting out, leading the school to administer an IQ-test. Though Kingsley has dreams of one day becoming an astronaut (he loves to visit the planetarium), he’s deemed by the headmaster as “too far behind,” and requires special education. On its face, nothing seems wrong. A boy like Kingsley needs concentrated instruction if he’s to catch back up, so to speak. But nothing, other than the racial inequality at play, is normal, here.

Knowing McQueen’s past cinematic subjects: slavery, sex addiction, and hunger strikes — he’s the last filmmaker one would associate with a coming of age story. His eye is typically visceral. His dialogue is usually frank. But in “Education,” with the assistance of co-writer Alastair Siddons, he discovers a different range. A softer yet just as devastating approach. Take the intimate wonderment of Kinsley visiting a planetarium show, where an exhilarated smile vibrates over his face. Or his late wishful bedtime prayers, when he asks God if he can still be an astronaut. These are gentle scenes rarely witnessed in McQueen’s past work.

But of course, with McQueen, harsh reality is always lurking around the corner. The special school Kingsley is sent to has a brochure advertising its forward-thinking, it even has a swimming pool. But in actuality, it’s special in all the worst ways. The attending children are lumped together in the same class no matter their age or particular needs. One girl, for instance, speaks through cat and dog sounds. Another, significantly older girl, exhibits no learning issues at all. Some “teachers” leave the students to unsupervised chaos rather than teaching. Others are somehow even less helpful. There’s a scene where one bloke bores the class with an excruciating cover of “House of the Rising Sun.” Relating a song about a brothel to kids trapped in a dead-end school is a choice, but somehow McQueen mingles the scene’s pain with comedic flair. Every time it feels like the teacher’s finished with his godforsaken cover, he continues after a beat. And the flash of dread across the children’s faces is hilarious yet lethal.

While Kingsley’s school is inattentive, his home life is just as wanting. His father (Daniel Francis) labors as a carpenter and would rather his children remained practical in their dreams. He wants Kingsley to find a trade. He disapproves of the interest of his daughter (Tamara Lawrance) shows in fashion design. But just as much as “Education” is Kingsley’s story, it’s his mother Agnes’ (Sharlene Whyte) too. Agnes labors around the clock cooking and cleaning, and working as a nurse. She’s also the family disciplinarian. See, Kingsley is afraid of his mother. He’s scared to disappoint her, to tap into her quick temper, a rage born from not only her workload but a feeling of unrealized immigrant dreams.

It’s not until two women — Hazel Lewis (Naomi Ackie, “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker”) and Lydia Thomas (Josette Simon) arrive at her doorstep — does she learn that Kingsley’s special school isn’t so special. It’s for the “educationally subnormal.” “Educationally subnormal.” The term might as well spring from a dystopian “Gattaca.” See, some schools are saying their academic standards are being eroded by the West Indian children in their classes, and they’ve begun segregating them to these subnormal institutions.

Agnes visits a town hall with other parents whose children are stuck in these same schools. It’s a searing scene filled with heartache and rage. Each parent believes they have failed their children. They have failed to attain the dreams they arrived in this country with, not only for themselves, but their family, too. And while Sandy, as Kingsley, carries the episode with acting far beyond his years, Whyte offers a guarded yet no less emotionally fulfilling performance. Just as her character is the heart of “Education,” Whyte is an undaunted engine of strength.

When I reviewed “Red, White and Blue” out of NYFF, it was billed as the final chapter in “Small Axe.” The order has now been changed for “Education” to be the concluding film. The final notes each narrative strikes is vastly different. While “Red, White, and Blue” asked hard questions about the possibility of ever-changing a corrupt police force, even from the inside, it provided no simple answers. There was, pardon the pun, an arresting sense to its final message—a more complicated, intriguing mood for an anthology consumed by black liberation. “Education,” on the other hand, is far more hopeful. It’s about community enacting change. It’s about self-schooling. It’s about racial and historical pride.

The concluding scene finds Kingsley taking supplementary Saturday school classes inside Mrs. Bartholomew’s quaint home (Jo Martin). There, she teaches him and the other children about the great kings and queens of Africa. And as Kingsley reads the history aloud, McQueen reaches for the ancestral, the celestial, and the regal, accompanied by strains of Bach. I have some issues with this grace note, which I’ll save for now, but “Education” ends “Small Axe” on unsuspectingly grand terms. Yet the compact 63-minute coming-of-age film never loses its soft devoted touch. And McQueen, already an incredible filmmaker, shows another facet to his immense range. [A-]