The Kitchen on Netflix: Les Misérables futuristic version stumbles on emotion (review)

Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya sign a small drama set in a futuristic suburb. Not powerful enough to really convince.

In the not-so-distant future, the city of London has decided to get rid of all social housing, which has given way to modern and comfortable apartments, which only the wealthiest can afford. The last space of the old world, “The Kitchen”, a dilapidated building, where a few hundred residents survive as best they can, refusing to leave the premises despite regular police raids. Izi (Kane Robinson, big charisma) works at Life After Lifean eco-funeral service which offers, to those who do not have the means to bury their loved one, to cremate the body and mix the ashes with seeds for ultimately grow a tree.

A scam that doesn’t reveal its name (without new payment, the deceased will go into the trash before being planted in the ground) but Izi turns a blind eye, her goal being to save enough to leave the “Kitchen” as quickly as possible. and join a luxurious apartment. One day, he meets a slightly lost teenager, Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), at a ceremony. His mother recently passed away and it turns out that Izi had a brief affair with her a few years ago… Could he be the kid’s father?

Black Lives Matter

There is an idea in The Kitchenthe first film by Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya (the main actor of Get Out) which opens with a rather clever alternating montage, between the daily life of this ghetto where only one shower works and a stunning motorcycle robbery scene.

Somewhere between Wretched and the cinema of Neill Blomkamp (the technology is slightly futuristic), the film very credibly poses a suburb where we are bursting through moldy walls (the sets and special effects are impeccable). Obviously not so dystopian, this universe immediately grabs the guts by talking especially about the present: Tavares and Kaluuya take advantage of this to inject references to the Black Lives Matter movement (“ I can’t breathe », pronounced twice during a police charge, in reference to the death of George Floyd in 2020).

Unfortunately, The Kitchen has a lot of trouble holding its own when it comes to dealing with the relationship between Izi and Benji, certainly solidly embodied, but which mainly plays out with a few hangdog looks. The emotion ostensibly sought after is absent and the plot takes up a lot of space, boredom lurks, especially since the conclusion seems a foregone conclusion. What remains is a pocket drama mixed with SF, with some beautiful visual ideas. Not so bad though.

The Kitchen, by Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya, with Kane Robinson (Kano), Hope Ikpoku Jnr, Henry Lawfull… Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes. On Netflix January 19.