THE LAST TREE (2019) FILM REVIEW

*****

15, 98 Mins

Britain's answer to 'Moonlight'.

There's a tendency in British social realist cinema to ground everything in gravelly grit with grisly grey skies overcasting the damp dankness of grotty kitchen sink estates and graffitied brick walls being all-too-familiar familiar sights on the Jafaican-inflected streets of Noel Clarke's 'Kidulthood' trilogy (2006-2016).

On stateside shores, Barry Jenkin's 'Moonlight' (2016) subverted the standards of social realism on film by proving it's possible to provide pulsating political commentary without drowning audiences in misery. 

In the years since that film's remarkable OSCAR victory, us Brits have struggled to come up with anything to match its symphonic storytelling across the pond. With 'The Last Tree', it appears we finally have.

​A semi-autobiograpical account of the childhood of its writer-director Shola Amoo, this trance-inducing coming-of-age drama opens with dapples of heartstring-yanking sunlight cast over an irredescent corn-field. These early shots could easily evoke a sense of syrupy sentimentality yet the sun-stroked cinematography paints eye-watering pallets of gold upon the landscape of Lincolnshire that - much the same way that Ken Loach's 'Kes' (1969) did for Yorkshire - creates a canvas that's almost too idyllic to be believed.

Running his hands through the corn with effortless wonder is 11 year old Femi (Tai Golding in an awe-inspiring child performance); a British Nigerian boy growing up in a white family with a loving foster mother named Mary (Denise Black).

The revelation of Femi's foster care is all, but a teaser for the darkness that's tucked beneath the beauty of his surroundings. Abruptly comes Femi's real mother Yinka (Gbemisola Ikumelo) whose ready to bring her boy home despite Mary's promises that "she's not going to take you away".

Cut swiftly to the grimy council estates of South London (photographed here with the watery, oriental elegance of Wong Kar-Wai's '2046' (2004)) and our innocent-looking protagonist is now a huge, hulking adolescent (played in teenage form by Sam Adewumni) dabbling with drugs and crime while receiving regular beatings from Yinka.

His last shot at redemption comes from the intervention of his teacher Mr. Williams (Nicholas Pinnock) who grew up in similarly poverty-stricken circumstances, sees potential in Femi's studies  and is determined to make sure one of his brightest students doesn't take the wrong road in life.

One of the greatest joys about 'The Last Tree' is its spectacular subversion of stereotypes. When young Femi is bullied and beaten up, its not by white boys in what could have fallen into the over-populated cinematic territory of exploring white skinhead-riddled racially-motivated violence. Instead - by making the bullies black - British Nigerian Director Amoo refuses to be biased; the reasoning behind the bullying coming from the "funny" sound of the name "Olu Femi" to the ears of Afro Caribbean students. It raises a tantalising debate surrounding the often unseen black-on-black racism that chillingly recalls the Damilola Taylor case.

From the outset, it's clear Femi doesn't quite fit in. Lyrical touches such as him tuning into metallic riffs of The Cure while lying to his mates that he's listening to Tupac provide stirring examples of the conflict at the heart of black masculinity where young black men are often brainwashed into behaving like the stereotypes often handed to them by the media.

Meanwhile - as his friends smoke pot and shoplift - Femi adores reading; his gradual descent into drug dealing and addiction coming not from peer pressure, but as an escape from the traumas of his home life with his mother. It is this story arc that arguably represents 'The Last Tree's most traditional trope; wrestling with the single mother matriarchal households that seem to reasonate amongst African and Afro Caribbean culture.

Despite being a storyline as old as cinema itself, its execution is delivered with rough-hewn conviction thanks to the stunning performances of Sam Adewumni and Gbemsola Ikumelo. The former fumes with testerone-fuelled fury that is well-explained by the latter's hard as nails parenting that titters towards domestic abuse.

Tempering the rage is a terrific turn from Nicholas Pinnock whose kindly Mr. Williams clearly owes a debt to Mahershalla Ali's swoon-worthy part as a sympathetic drug-dealer in the much-mentioned 'Moonlight'. The tender chemistry between Adewumni and Pinnock is mesmerising with the latter providing the missing paternal figure in his student's life as the film grapples with the sobering lack of male role models often missing from black households.

It's a role that could have easily belonged to a "white saviour", but making Mr. Williams a black character who grew up in the ghettos only to work his way up the social ladder only adds to the film's universal appeal.
 
Despite the complex and unflinching nature of its themes, there's nothing here that isn't breathtakingly beautiful. The camera swirls deliriously around the hardened face of our central character throughout while scattering the screen with slow-mo shots mixed with floaty visuals that offer audiences a dream-like trip into his tortured psyche. Meanwhile a fantastically fluid score pulses with electronic pathos; swimming up to the surface and down to the depths with the manic mood swings of the drama.

Building on the artful promises of 2016's 'A Moving Image', Director Amoo has created a timeless masterpiece refreshingly free of exclusivity to any race, class or gender. This may be a little arthouse picture with a budget likely less than a million, but there's film-making finesse here that dwarfs the biggest behemoth of a blockbuster. With our help at the Box Office, every penny should go towards allowing this director to continue making movies as mouth-welling as this. 
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