This is the fifth and final installment in the series created by writer-director Steve McQueen. It is my second favorite of the five. My first favorite is indeed the first installment called
Mangrove. Like HBO's
The Wire, McQueen pivots away from a critique of the police force to a critique of the school system. The critique comes from a 1971 book by Bernard Coard about what was called Educational Sub-Normal schools or ESN schools. These ESN schools were a way of segregating Afro-Caribbean children out of mainstream British schools. ESN schools were allegedly set up to help academically-challenged or special needs children, but they became instead vehicles for racism or educational inequality. This film focuses on a child who goes to one of these schools and how his family reacts to his being sent there.
Kenyah Sandy (Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey) stars as Kingsley Smith, a 12-year-old Black boy who has West Indian parents and an older sister. He dreams of one day being an astronaut. The film opens with him on a school trip to the planetarium where he's fascinated by the stars in the sky and outer space. He has a passing interest in music, but his true goal is to become an astronaut. Unfortunately, Kingsley has trouble reading. He seems almost illiterate and the film never examines why. He seems to have some kind of learning disability, but that's never confirmed. It could just be that he had bad teachers who never gave him the attention he needed.
Naomi Ackie (
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and
The End of the F***ing World) co-stars as Hazel Lewis, a psychologist who works for a nonprofit organization that is attempting to address the educational inequality for Black children like Kingsley. She goes to ESN schools and tries to discover if any of the children there, particularly Black children, deserve to be there. She finds plenty that don't. Despite being a psychologist, she also works as a teacher and behaves like one. She has the compassion and strength to guide and instruct children properly.
When it comes to children like Kingsley, they feel shame because they know that they're in a place that they're not supposed to be and that they're being treated unfairly or as if they're dumb. People like Hazel don't need to convince the children that there's something wrong here. The people who need to be convinced are the parents of these children. It's like a reverse Miss Virginia (2019) where instead of the mother or father pushing back against this unfair educational system, it's the mother and father who get pushed.
Sharlene Whyte (
Second Coming and
Waterloo Road) also co-stars as Agnes Smith, the mother to Kingsley. She's a very conservative, West Indian, Black woman. She's trying to make sure her children do well and get a good education, but she's swamped with work, making sure the bills get paid. She's upset when she finds out her son has to go to an ESN school, but she accepts it eventually. She's one of those people that doesn't see the institutional racism and thinks all problems can be solved through individualism and the individual person simply working harder, but, as it's pointed out, some problems, particularly institutional problems, can't be solved through sheer individual accomplishments alone.
Finally though, why this film is amazing is the overall message at the end. Even if this ESN school problem didn't exist, there's still a fundamental problem with the curriculum of schools not only in the UK but in the USA. The fundamental problem is that schools don't teach Black history or Black culture. Because of which Black children don't learn about things like Queen Zaria, which is referenced in this film. Ironically, Black children probably don't learn about several of the people that McQueen has introduced throughout this Small Axe series, people like the Mangrove Nine, Leroy Logan or Alex Wheatle.
Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 5 mins.
Available on Amazon Prime.
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