24-year-old Keith (MacCaul Lombardi) may actually be out of jail after serving time for drug dealing but as he still has to wear a police monitoring ankle bracelet and live at home with his father, he feels that his punishment is not over yet.
There is no real connection at all between him and his father Carol (Jim Belushi) and the two men try and avoid each other in their small house in a working-class suburb of Baltimore. Even Keith’s ex-girlfriend Courtney (Zazie Beetz) who was also once his best friend, wants nothing to do with him at all. In fact, the only people keen to re-connect are a trio of thugs from his prison days who offer to ‘help him transition’ and draw him back into the bad old ways that he is now desperately trying to avoid.
There is soup-dispensing tough-love Grandmother (Lynn Cohen) baiting him into a better life, and the support of his sister (Marin Ireland but despite his best intentions, Keith ultimately lacks the passion to kick-start his life. His half-hearted attempt to train as HVAC mechanic never gets off the ground when he keeps failing to turn up on time.
There is a neat scene where the normally unemotional Carol tries to persuade Courtney not to turn Keith in for his latest digression and really showing for once how much he cares for his son even though he is so bitterly disappointed in him. In the end, however, there is nothing that he or anyone else can do, to stop Keith spiraling into his very downfall so lethargically.
This rather intriguing fourth feature from filmmaker Matthew Porterfield has pitch-perfect timing as it seems to reflect the growing unrest of working-class white men in this country who have unwittingly had a major impact on the political direction this country has taken over these past 18 months. With an African/American girlfriend and also his mentor, Keith is not completely atypical of the aggrieved blue-collar men who have used their anger to fuel this current Alt-Right movement, but you can see in him the frustration that everything has slipped totally out of his control.
With a remarkably nuanced performance from newcomer Lombardi as Keith, with another fine turn from Belushi as his frustrated father, Sollers Point is a compelling drama that will rightly disturb more than a few people.
Labels: 2018, drama, Miami Film Festival
