The London of the near future in the striking and bleak drama “The Kitchen” is divided into two distinct territories that are miles apart but also the proverbial worlds apart.
In the privileged-class sections of the city, the streets are pristine, businesses thrive, and the residents enjoy life in safe and secure and well-appointed housing. In the outer boroughs, the socially and economically oppressed people live in stacked housing that looks like a demented Lego vision brought to life size, and the government routinely shuts off utilities and conducts raids to drive the populace from these ad-hoc communities, with no thought or regard for what will happen to them after that.
If you think these two worlds won’t eventually clash in shattering fashion, you haven’t been reading your Dystopian Movie Playbook.
Based on that setup, one might assume “The Kitchen” will be a thriller and there are indeed some well-choreographed action sequences, but co-directors Daniel Kaluuya (the “Get Out” actor who won an Oscar for “Judas and the Black Messiah”) and Kibwe Tavares concentrate primarily on crafting a message movie with obvious parallels to present-day issues, as told through the eyes of two main characters who have only just met but could be father and son.
With a seamless blending of production design and VFX, we’re plunged into the world of The Kitchen, which apparently is so named because the residents hang out the windows and bang pots and pans whenever a police raid is imminent.
Kane Robinson gives a classic quiet-but-determined-leading-man performance as Izi, a loner who lives in a tightly secured apartment in The Kitchen. (His door is reinforced, by choice, as if he’s in a maximum-security cell). Every morning, Izi races his motorcycle into the city, where he works as a salesman for Life After Life, a corporate funeral home that specializes in memorial services featuring glossy montages of the economically lower-class deceased, after which their bodies are cremated, and their ashes are blended with tree saplings. How lovely. How terrible.
It’s a job Izi clearly hates, but he has put in the hours and the effort, and he has finally been approved to escape The Kitchen for a relatively posh apartment in the upscale Buena Vida complex. He’s out!
Of course, that’s when the complications set in. Izi observes a memorial service at which 12-year-old Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman) says goodbye to his mother, after which Izi reluctantly agrees to give Benji his first-ever look at The Kitchen. (We instantly wonder: Is Izi Benji’s father? Izi dodges the query, telling Benji only that he knew his mother a long time ago. The question lingers throughout much of the story.)
Life in The Kitchen is grim and tense, but there’s also a strong sense of community, as evidenced by the pop-up barber shops and convenience stores and rows of sales kiosks, even the underground nightclubs where residents blow off steam. From dawn to dusk and sometimes into the night, a beloved figure known as Lord Kitchener (played by the former English footballer turned radio/TV personality Ian Wright) is heard on the radio, providing news updates, offering encouraging words and reminding residents they’re all in this together and they must look out for one another. (The Lord Kitchener character feels like a tribute of sorts to the D.J. character in “The Warriors.”)
Against this backdrop, Benji falls in with a gang of hooligans led by the rebellious Staples (Hope Ikpoku Jr.), who brings a kind of Robin Hood mentality to their crimes. Still, with Staples and the gang pulling stunts like sling-shotting rocks at the ever-present police drones fluttering about the neighborhood, Izi cautions Benji that it’s only a matter of time before the lot of them get swept up in a raid. Izi offers to have Benji move in with him at the Buena Vida complex, which means Izi will have to re-apply for a two-person dwelling, which means they’re going to have to wait a while longer, even as the authorities are closing in on The Kitchen and the entire community will be arrested or displaced sooner rather than later.
The filmmakers (working from a script by Kaluuya and Joe Murtaugh) deftly blend some stunning action sequences with moments of quiet beauty, as when a large contingent from The Kitchen gathers at Life After Life for a memorial service for one of their own. Kane Robinson as Izi and Jedaiah Bannerman as Benji have a natural dynamic and come to care for one another. When the stuff hits the fan and all hell breaks loose, it almost doesn’t matter if Izi is Benji’s biological father. All they have is each other.