I am slowly sensing a micro trend where science fiction is becoming the people’s genre for social justice. Most recently, with The Creator (2023) and Nope (2022), not only is science fiction becoming more nuanced and political, but there seems to be a heavier emphasis on familial relationships rather than traditional romances. So you can imagine my intrigue when I saw that Daniel Kaluuya was making his directorial debut with Netflix’s The Kitchen–a self-described science fiction thriller that not-so-subtly calls out housing crises, class differences, and the importance of familial communities. 

In a future dystopian London, we are introduced to Izi (Kano), a residence of The Kitchen, the last social housing community in the city. Izi is focused on leaving The Kitchen, applying for and waiting to move to “Buena Vida,” a new single-occupancy apartment. After crossing paths with a young teenager, Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), who is on his own after the passing of his mother, Izi has to rethink what’s most important to him. 

The most frustrating — and the most intriguing — choice made by Kaluuya and his co-writer, Joe Murtagh, and co-director, Kibwe Tavares, is the refusal to give viewers any more than the bare minimum of world-building and contextualization. Both Izi and Benji’s back stories are fuzzy, the state of the government or economic environment of London is barely revealed, and the only reason we know The Kitchen is the last housing complex in London is because of the IMDb summary. The film has very few details, yet we get very close to Izi and Benji. The world around them isn’t the priority; their relationship to each other and to The Kitchen is all that matters. 

The central location of the film, The Kitchen, is built upon the fundamental understandings and stereotypes of global community housing. There are underground clubs, communal showers, makeshift doors, stores, markets, and gangs. The building itself resembles a shanty town crossed with an abandoned skyscraper, where resentment festers as police charge in and try to beat people out of the complex. Although there is no single antagonist, the film makes clear that police brutality towards minorities and lower-class groups will still take place in the future. 

As we follow Izi and Benji’s relationship blossom into a father-son relationship, we are privy to up close hand-held shots of their reactions, highlighting how they handle death, rejection, love, and the horrors of being pushed out of one’s home. This intimate camera technique is most impactful during the few scenes of violence between the police and the residents of The Kitchen. That, accompanied by the use of silence and the R&B Kitchen radio station, made for some dramatic and gut-wrenching moments. 

By the conclusion of the film, when Benji and Izi have a heart-to-heart, revealing the true nature of their relationship, I find myself disappointed that I was promised a science fiction film. While there were some moments of technological advances that indicated we were in the future, this film could have started with a title card that said “2025,” and I would’ve believed that every drone or touch screen in the film existed in the modern era. Truly, this film played out more as a melodrama, a film full of “too late” moments urging you to shed a tear as we watch both Benji, Izi and The Kitchen residents try to hold onto any sense of the word “home.” Unfortunately, like most melodramas, some moments and sequences slowed down too much for an almost two-hour film. 

Both Murtagh and Bannerman offered adequate performances; they shined the most in their moments together, where we could see each character not always saying everything they wanted. When each actor was alone or with some of the less-developed supporting cast, I found them to be less convincing. There wasn’t enough emotion for me to buy into the “long lost son” approach. 

Overall, Kaluuya has potential in the director’s chair. For a first outing, he came out swinging with a truly angry, politically charged film–not unlike his best films as an actor. He had something to say, and the film was clear about it. While the platform of science fiction may have fallen flat in execution, I found The Kitchen to be a strong start to what I expect to be a very thought-provoking portfolio from Kaluuya and Tavares. 

Review Courtesy of Sara Ciplickas

Feature Image Credit to Netflix via TV.Programmes