BROTHER (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Brother, Vertical

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 3, 2023

Michael (Lamar Johnson) lives in the shadow of his older brother, and it's quite the shadow cast by Francis (Aaron Pierre), even in death. Writer/director Clement Virgo's Brother observes this fraternal relationship at three different points in time: the first when the two are kids, the second when they're teenagers, and the third when Michael, a young man 10 years after Francis' tragic passing, is still trying to figure out how to move forward without someone showing him the way.

This is, obviously, a mournful film—not simply during that third passage, but throughout, because we know this relationship will end and on account of how much loss there is even before that—but also a quietly lovely one. That only makes the sense of mourning so much stronger. These two brothers possess such a potent bond, supporting and guiding each other through a life in the impoverished Toronto suburb of Scarborough, and so much potential. The loss of one is a loss of all of that, too, and much more, and Virgo, adapting David Chariandy's novel, allows us to see and feel that.

The story opens with teenaged Michael being brought to one of the many power line towers passing through the neighborhood by Francis. The elder brother has climbed this structure before, and now, it's time for his younger sibling to brave the heights, the risk of electrocution, and the narrow rungs that serve as a ladder to the top. It's worth it, Francis tells Michael, if only because the view from the peak is so amazing.

It's a pretty obvious metaphor for their relationship, as Michael sticks behind Francis and the latter offers instructions to the former whenever he needs them. To complain about that, when so much else in the film is about the unspoken ways this relationship defines who each of the characters is, feels like folly, though. The payoff to that scene, which plays out intermittently throughout the cross-cutting between those three periods of time, is so simple and such a tangible act of love that it hardly matters the metaphor is so on the nose.

The present-day section has Michael, who has a job and still lives in the apartment where he grew up, meeting Aisha (Kiana Madeira) at the local bus stop. She used to live in the neighborhood, too—specifically in one of the buildings making up the housing complex where a large portion of the story unfolds. It's a place where economically disadvantaged people simply try to make it by day by day, whether that be working long hours, as the boys' Jamaican immigrant mother Ruth (Marsha Stephanie Blake) did when she still had both of her sons depending on her, or joining a gang for the kind of bonds that some of the neighborhood's young men don't have at home.

In the present tense of the narrative, Francis has been dead for a decade, under circumstances that don't become clear until near the end of the film. Michael is scraping by, supporting himself and his mother, who has never recovered from the shock of her first-born son's death and lives a silent, distracted existence in the apartment. Aisha has returned to Scarborough following the death of her father, and without a place to stay, Michael has invited her to take his bed for as long as she needs. Eventually, the two start to discuss how little they actually know about the parents who raised them and to debate how best to find some kind of meaning in grief.

Apart from that section, the main one revolves around the brothers as teenagers, with Francis being known and respected by everyone in the neighborhood for his good looks, his kindness, and his ability to navigate around the boundaries of a constantly increasing gang war. Meanwhile, Michael is quiet and awkward—qualities that are only emphasized by any comparison to his older sibling. Even a younger Aisha, who becomes Michael's first girlfriend, mainly knows of the younger brother by way of how much the girls in school speak about Francis.

The point is that Michael is always searching for himself and his place in the world, while Francis has a strong sense of who he is, helping a young girl fix her bike and rushing toward gunfire when someone he knows is shot, and what he wants, namely to break into the music business with his friend, eventual roommate, and more Jelly (Lovell Adams-Gray). Francis is an optimistic dreamer, aware of but seemingly unfazed by lines established by the gangs, the violence surrounding him, and how unlikely his goals might be.

Meanwhile, the earliest section of the narrative, with the two brothers as young boys (with Michael played by David Odion and Francis played by Jacob Williams) often alone in the apartment and ensuring everything is in order while their mom works, gives a sense of Michael's general anxiety. He's frightened by the yelling and sirens in the night outside, as well as particularly by news footage of an armed robbery, and it's always Francis ready to protect him, just as he becomes willing to offer protection to anyone in need of it.

Brother portrays but doesn't wallow in or exploit the various challenges presented to these characters within their socioeconomic standings. Obviously, the inevitable tragedy at the melancholy core of the film defines much of the tone and structure of Virgo's elliptical filmmaking, which wisely weaves these three timelines together with emotional cues. It's the strength and affection of the central bond—so subtly but precisely portrayed by Johnson and Pierre—that leave the most significant impression, though—and, unfortunately, the most devastating void.

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