Film Review: 'The Last Black Man in San Francisco'
Awarded U.S. Dramatic Directing Award by Sundance Film Festival, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (2019) is a poignant story still impressing audiences two years later. Director Joe Talbot wrote the script, along with Rob Richert, by drawing inspiration from the life of his friend Jimmy Fails, who plays himself in the film. Backed by production companies A24 and Plan B, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” garnered high praise on its tour of American film festivals like the Top Ten Independent Films award from the National Board of Review. This love/hate-letter to San Francisco is both moving and charming, and definitely worth the watch.
This love/hate-letter to San Francisco is both moving and charming, and definitely worth the watch.
Jimmie Fails lives in Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco, and obsesses on a time when his family lived in the now-gentrified Fillmore District. His grandfather built the home and Jimmy takes it upon himself to maintain, weed and paint the front, much to the owners’ dismay. The movie slowly reveals Jimmy’s tumultuous upbringing after rising rent prices drove the Fails family from the Fillmore home, his mom long gone and father an unpleasant grouch. Now Jimmy stays on the floor of his best friend’s room, a thespian named Montgomery ‘Mont’ Allen (Jonathan Majors). They spend their days together at Mont’s job at the local fish market, skating through the city or fixing up the Fillmore house until they return to Grandpa Allen’s (Danny Glover) house for the night. While both have jobs, neither see a path in which they can escape their current life. When the current owners move out of the Fillmore District house, Jimmy and Mont squat in the space to fulfill Jimmy’s dream of restoring the home and enjoying its beauty.
The movie hinges on the idea that every person is trapped in the ‘boxes’ society put us in, but we can break free of these confines. The stereotypes and expectations that accompany race, class and gender are not concrete. Mont, the thespian, acts as director and writer of his play ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’ and gathers inspiration from the fascinating characters he and Jimmy come across. The film shows many boxes of the San Francisco ecosystem, and the interesting people inhabiting them.
Jimmy and Mont are a pair that isn’t often seen on the big screen. Two best friends, who are black, share their dreams and emotions with each other, even as the world challenges their trust in one another. Their first scene shows the two forgoing the tardy bus and skateboarding into the city — on Jimmy’s one board. Honestly, it’s a feat of skill how the pair filmed the sequences let alone how calm and comfortable they were cruising downhills, it’s a display of the most comfortable friendship. The pair of them laugh, cry, hug and co-exist together and it is refreshing to see a genuine male friendship without the challenges of toxic masculinity.
Gentrification isn’t so much of a theme but rather a reality Jimmy navigates. In turn, the viewer experiences San Francisco through his eyes. He knows his father lost the house because they couldn’t afford rising costs. He knows his low-income primarily black neighborhood is next to a toxic bay. He knows the city only sent workers in hazmat suits to clean the water because the gentrified city was expanding closer to them. He knows Mont’s work sells toxic fish from the bay, and his neighbors eat it daily. He knows his job in the city only pays for half a room in Bayview-Hunters Point. He knows white people stare at him and Monty when they roll through the city. These are realities that Jimmy understands from a lifetime of living in a city that no longer wants him, black people and poor people. Still, Jimmy fights to enjoy what his grandfather built.
“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” lives up to its praise and challenges the way we view America’s rapidly changing cities.
“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” can be streamed on Amazon Prime.
