directed by Sarah Gavron
This film was one of the British gems during BAFTA 2021. It was nominated for seven awards, which is quite impressive, I must say. And I honestly expected something spectacular, especially since I like dramas. But there’s something about British dramas that makes me feel like they’ve been all made by the same person. It’s often difficult for me to distinguish certain style and it all ends up in my mind’s bag called “British drama”. Still, I believe it’s a film that may interest you, especially since it touches an important topic. Rocks (Bukky Bakray) is a teenager living with her mother and little brother Emmanuel (D’angelou Osei Kissiedu). Everything seems fine until one day the girl gets back home to find a note from her mother saying that she needed to leave. At first Rocks doesn’t understand and tries to contact the woman, but soon she realises that it was leaving for good. From now on, Rocks cannot enjoy the life of a teenager, but she needs to “grow up” immediately to provide for her and her brother. And to make sure they won’t be taken into social services. On the one hand we get the problem of single parents not dealing with their lives as it’s horribly difficult to stay mentally stable in such position. You have a lot of pressure and you may feel like what you’re doing doesn’t make sense, so at some point you just give up and see what happens. But then, there are children who aren’t responsible for their life situation and often need to make up for adult mistakes. Plus, they still want to enjoy being children/teenagers – they deserve to have their own problems, their own dilemmas. It is a difficult topic and I think the film is generally worth seeing. I wasn’t amazed, yet I do recommend it. Especially since Bukky Bakray, who played Rocks, won the Rising Star Award at BAFTA this year, so you may see a rising star on the screen.
My rating: 6/10
S.
I have nothing to watch 