The Kitchen: A review by Maisy Nichols
Izi is getting out of the Kitchen, until he isn’t. Weeks before he’s due to pay his way out of the over-crowded complex housing the last of dystopian London’s poorest, he stumbles across the funeral of an old lover, attended only by her adolescent son, Benji. Amidst rising tensions between oppressive police forces and the malcontent masses of the Kitchen, Izi takes Benji under his wing, risking his last chance to a ticket out of urban doom.
Daniel Kaluuya (actor, then Oscar-winner, now promising young director) is the first of the three talents that demand our attention in Netflix’s latest original release. Sharing the director’s chair with Factory Fifteen founder Kibwe Tavares, Kaluuya flexes his fresh visual style in this brashly political social-drama with punch; a film as comfortable throwing us through a shocking, adrenaline pumping police-raid as it is quietly pondering memory, legacy and death.
The world-building offers a fresh trip around the same futuristic track, fusing Blade Runner’s nightmarish neon with the vibrant grunge of Dune in a new generation’s vision of humanity gone hyper-techno. ‘An overcrowded, poverty-stricken estate at breaking point’ isn’t a groundbreaking narrative proposal, but the Kitchen complex itself aches with such meticulous design and unnerving modern relevance that you’ll find yourself yearning for Kaluuya’s serving of not-so-distant dystopia.
The film endures its sole pacing struggle in the second act; hanging in the awkward space where we only half-care about our characters and providing just short of the action necessary to maintain a wider audience’s attention. But Tavares and Kaluuya don’t waste this dip in pace, devoting time to occasionally tedious but sufficiently heartwarming scenes depicting the blossoming bond between Izi (Kane Robinson) and Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman).
The Kitchen enchants most effectively with this kind of humanity. The estate’s tight-knit neighbourhood mirrors the collective care of the tread-upon of Modern Britain, and we see our own values reflected in the dystopian masses. Community defines them. A frame shot in the complex itself is rarely missing a token of togetherness, from linked hands amongst the bustle of the busy market to a candlelit vigil glowing across hundreds of silent windowsills. Art binds them. Pockets of simmering sub-culture occupy skate parks and underground rinks that overflow with artistry in a vibrant depiction of young, black talent. Music heals them. Ian Wright spins soul classics and whispers wisdom over Kitchen Radio as a tuned-in community chief reminiscent of Sam Jackson’s DJ in Do The Right Thing. When he’s slaughtered by police, mourners fill his chapel with song in a whiplash-moment of brutal stillness in an otherwise non-stop story.
It’s moments like these that define The Kitchen. Moments of stomach-churning cruelty underpinned by the beating heart of a community that stands undefeated by the powers that be. Frames that nearly buckle under the magnitude of the opposing forces contained within them. Rage and love. War and peace. Solidarity and hatred. One moment, we’re soaring with Izi through the steel jungle of a hyper-gentrified London, the next we’re clutching Benji’s hand as he sits dutifully by his mother’s grave. And nowhere is the conflict between these two energies depicted more powerfully than the internal struggles of Benji and Staples.
Jedaiah Bannerman and Hope Ikpoku Jnr. (Staples) complete the shining trio of talent in The Kitchen. Bannerman is stunningly raw as the newly orphaned teenager searching for purpose in a city of indifference, approaching every shot with the maturity of a seasoned professional. Ikpoku Jnr, fresh off the trail of a gripping turn in Top Boy, is equally flawless as Staples, balancing the tenderness of young hope with the consuming rage of collective grief in a sucker punch performance.
It’s an impressive feat that Kaluuya and Tavares squeeze this kind of cinematic scope into a tidy 105 minutes, let alone that they do it so well. In under two hours, we witness a community bloom, resist, decay and re-build, and rarely lose our footing along the way. Although The Kitchen occasionally treads over familiar narrative ground, its grounding performances, fascinating visuals and the sheer heart of it all, means there’s also nothing quite like it.
