The deserving winner of the grand jury prize at Sundance this year, the directorial debut from AV Rockwell is rather special. Set in Harlem, New York, and spanning from 1994 to 2005, it’s a dual coming-of-age story, simultaneously following a mother – firecracker Inez (an incendiary Teyana Taylor), at the start of the film an impulsive ex-con recently released from Rikers Island prison – and a son, Terry (played by Aaron Kingsley Adetola as a six-year-old, Aven Courtney at 13, Josiah Cross at 17). When Inez reconnects by chance with Terry, he’s a broken little child, already half chewed up by the foster care system. Something in the subdued way that he assumes that abandonment is inevitable cuts deep, triggering Inez’s own memories of a childhood in the care system. She makes a fateful decision and snatches Terry, with little plan other than to be there for him, to make a home for him.
And against the odds, she succeeds, forging a rocky domestic unit with Lucky (William Catlett). But Inez and Terry are not the only ones changing: the city around them, and in particular Harlem, is being reshaped into a space that no longer feels like home. This is captured visually through Eric Yue’s deft, empathic camerawork, but also through the soundscape around the frame, which evolves from the rowdy bustle of a community into the harder, less welcoming clatter of construction work. Tying it together is a phenomenal score by Gary Gunn. Lush strings pay tribute to the film compositions of Quincy Jones, but even the swell and sweep of the orchestra fails to prepare us for the emotive impact of the final act.
In cinemas now
