The Skinny
GFF 2021: A Brixton Tale
There's too much going on in this look at race and love in modern Britain, with A Brixton Tale’s enigmatic first half giving way to a more obvious socioeconomic crime narrative
★★
Film title:
A Brixton Tale
Director:
Darragh Carey, Bertrand Desrochers
Starring:
Lily Newmark, Ola Orebiyi, Jaime Winstone
A Brixton Tale isn’t quite sure what kind of film it wants to be. As it begins, young Leah (Lily Newmark) is trying to make it big as a video artist at the gallery she interns for, documenting her life with fly-on-the-wall footage intended to create a snapshot of life in her local Brixton stomping grounds. When she captures the charming, shy Benji (Ola Orebiyi) on camera, the two begin a relationship that is inextricable from her personal ambition, laying the groundwork for an irreconcilable tension in their romance.