Oscar-winning actor-turned-filmmaker Daniel Kaluuya’s directorial debut, “The Kitchen,” is a slightly unusual, oddly shaped movie at times. And/or, another way to look at it is, depending on your point of view, Daniel Kaluuya’s filmmaking debut (co-directed with Kibwe Tavares, who also makes his feature-length debut) may defy your expectations, and it has much more on its mind than you might presume. While it looks (and is marketed as) a sci-fi dystopian thriller about a future that is dark and grim, where the gap between rich and poor has been stretched beyond its limits, and gangs try and subvert the oppressive, ever-watchful Orwellian eye of the authority, what eventually emerges is something more soulful about fathers and sons and the collective power of community in the face of great inequality. It’s really more drama than a sci-fi movie—which is a good thing in the case of this story— and with a deeper core of resiliency. Still, you might not realize it because the initial presentation points to something more thriller-ish but with less substance than the final product.
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Moreover, it’s so chock full of initial energy and style you could easily mistake it for something else. Set in a society akin to looking something like a cross between “Blade Runner,” “La Haine,” “Fish Tank,” and “Attack The Block,” Kaluuya is clearly committed to putting the authentic Black U.K. experience on film, something that’s arguably lacking outside of recent triumphs like Steven McQueen’s stellar “Small Axe” movies (though Sarah Gavron’s “Rocks” may be another good recent example).
In a dystopian London, every form of social housing has been eradicated, and only The Kitchen remains, a bleak and grim (but lively) set of block towers that look like a form of incarceration. The Kitchen is essentially illegal and under constant intrusive surveillance and persecution, but the community that resides there refuses to leave the place they call home.
British rapper-turned-actor Kane Robinson stars as Izi, a skeptical outsider who works in a futuristic funeral home—designed to hustle clients into upselling into this modern form of celebrating the dead (everyone’s got to grind and struggle in this milieu). While his home is The Kitchen, he doesn’t honestly believe in its communal spirit, believing they’re all going to get dragged out of there one day, and it’s really every man for himself. When the viewer meets Izi, he’s already made plans to escape The Kitchen and create a new life for himself as an upstanding member of the ruling class.
Eventually, he meets Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman) through work, a boy who has just lost his mother and has nothing. Izi apparently knew Benji’s mom way back in the day—and there’s even a cryptic notion that he could be his dad as Benji never knew his father, and his mom said he lived somewhere in The Kitchen. So Izi is deeply cynical about the boy and wants nothing to do with him. But eventually, his sense of righteousness means at least giving him a place to stay for a few days. However, as Benji starts to fall in with a bad crowd of Kitchen thugs (played by Hope Ikpoku Jr., BackRoad Gee, and others), Izi’s sense of care and duty for the boy soon begins to challenge his notions of self-interest.
What transpires is, essentially, a bonding change-of-heart movie where Izi and Benji begin to form a tentative relationship amidst the backdrop of a society that is stacked against people like them (Cristale, Teija Kabs, Ian Wright, and Demmy Ladipo also co-star as residents of The Kitchen).
Romain Gavras’ incredible street-level uprising riots film “Athena” also seems to be another touchstone for the film too, full of the same manic, restless and roving energy. But it’s arguably the wrong fit for “The Kitchen,” which is telling a more sensitive and intimate story.
In this regard, style and expressing the culture is almost a distraction to the main story. Tavares and Kaluuya are good at expressing the vibrant street-level culture of London and this dystopian world, the grime and trap music, the blaring futurio rap, the bike culture, roller skating, the throwback dancing culture, and all the ways the misfortunate still seem to thrive through hardship, perhaps a unifying sense of resilience that is seen all over the globe from the favelas of Sao Paolo to any impoverished streets that still teem with a similar overflowing abundance of life, flavor, and culture.
But this pulsating dynamism, seemingly ever-present in “The Kitchen,” is sometimes a little at odds with its more poignant story; you can’t help but wonder how much more personal the film might be if it were stripped of all those trappings.
Still, “The Kitchen” largely works thanks to Robinson’s quiet performance of a self-absorbed man whose sense of empathy awakens to the true capacity of the collective “we” unity of the Kitchen and the idea of looking out for each other because no one else has our backs. To that extent, Robinson’s stoic and minimalist performance plays incredibly well against Bannerman’s more energetic and manic teenager role. Bannerman has seemingly no major acting experience before this, but there are moments that make you question that notion—he does much more than just serviceable work in this role. Together, these two carry the emotional weight of their shared story, which again makes you often forget you’re even in a futuristic sci-fi story, for better or worse.
Kaluuya and Tavares also do an exceptional job fleshing out The Kitchen as a location. The world feels lived-in, and though it’s a dystopian world with oppressive law enforcement and the constant threat of invasion from outside forces who want to end their way of life, this community is persevering and seemingly thriving. While you understand this situation has been forced on these people, there’s never any doubt that they want to save The Kitchen and, more importantly, the community. All that to say, it’s rare in a dystopian sci-fi film to feel this desire to experience it for yourself as a viewer, but there’s just a vitality in The Kitchen that is endlessly enjoyable and memorable.
Flawed but still engaging, “The Kitchen,” at least, has good intentions about togetherness and brotherhood and is a promising debut for Kaluuya and Tavares. Moreover, “The Kitchen” seems to signal the beginning of a new chapter for the former. Because honestly, it doesn’t feel like a project that Hollywood or Kaluuya’s agents want him to spend his energy on when some other hot offer is likely on the table. Still, “The Kitchen” seems to embody something more and something richer: the notion of Kaluuya redefining himself, taking charge of his own creative direction, and firmly placing his destiny into his own hands. [B]
“The Kitchen” premieres January 19 on Netflix.
