THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO
Keeping house…
Home is most definitely where the heart is for San Francisco resident Jimmie (Jimmie Fails), a skate-boarding dreamer obsessed with reclaiming the elegant house in the Fillmore District he lived in as a child before being pushed to the city’s outskirts, like so many fellow African-Americans.
He spends his downtime repairing the handsome Victorian edifice, much to the chagrin of its current (white) owners. When he gets the chance to move back in, he and best friend Mont (Jonathan Majors), a budding playwright, seize it with both hands. But how long can they maintain a bolt-hole in what used to be known as the Harlem of the west before the forces of gentrification send them packing again?
Beautifully shot (by Adam NewportBerra) and sumptuously scored (by Emile Mosseri), Joe Talbot’s debut feature presents a meditation on the African-American experience that recalls both the recent work of Barry Jenkins and early joints of Spike Lee.
Based in part on Falls’ experiences of dislocation and homelessness, this story of an odd-couple friendship, reminiscent at times of the central pairing in Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men, has an endearingly offbeat quality that offsets the serious points the film seeks to make about the relationship between architecture and identity and the seductive pull of an idealised past. Ultimately, alas, The Last Black Man In San Francisco is just too leisurely to generate any real dramatic heat. Still, the performances - which include a winning turn from Danny Glover as Mont’s grandpa and a sleazy one from Finn Wittrock as a grasping realtor, are all top-notch. Neil Smith
THE VERDICT
San Fran’s never looked better in a film that, for all its virtues, struggles to justify its two-hour runtime.