Taglines: Caribbean immigrants.
Brother movie storyline. Lamar Johnson and Aaron Pierre play the inseparable brothers Michael and Francis. Every night, before leaving for work, their mother (Marsha Stephanie Blake) gives them strict instructions to stay indoors and keep the TV off, but the two inevitably become entangled in what’s going on outside, both in person and through nightly news reports. Michael, a timid teenager, is always protected by the slightly older Francis, who, in their father’s absence, steps up to be his mentor.
Ten years later, Francis is gone and Michael, unmoored, struggles to take care of his mother, who is now incapacitated by grief. The film slowly pieces together their tragedy, jumping back and forth through time to capture its weight, and to track how a mother’s painstaking efforts to protect her children can only extend so far.
Realized through Virgo’s thoughtful direction, bolstered by exceptional performances, cinematography, and production design, Brother is a sorrowful but ultimately healing work that pays close attention to the need for kinship and community. Michael and Francis’s stories constitute a familiar reality for many young Black men, but are refracted through a unique structure that recognizes that memories can be both a burden and a blessing.
Brother is a 2022 Canadian drama film, written, produced and directed by Clement Virgo. An adaptation of David Chariandy’s award-winning novel of the same name, the film centres on the relationship between Francis and Michael, two Black Canadian brothers growing up in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario in the early 1990s. The film stars Aaron Pierre as Francis and Lamar Johnson as Michael, with supporting cast members including Kiana Madeira, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Lovell Adams-Gray, Maurice Dean Wint and Dwain Murphy.
The novel’s optioning for film was announced in 2018, and the film went into production in fall 2021. It is the second Canadian film in as many years, following Scarborough in 2021, to be set in the Galloway Road neighbourhood of Scarborough, and Virgo’s first theatrical feature film since 2007’s Poor Boy’s Game.
The film premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2022. It was also screened as the closing film of the 2022 Calgary International Film Festival and as the opening film of the 2022 FIN Atlantic Film Festival.
Brother (2023)
Directed by: Clement Virgo
Starring: Aaron Pierre, Lamar Johnson, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Kiana Madeira, Lovell Adams-Gray, Maurice Dean Wint, Dwain Murphy, Inderjeet Bajwa, Alsseny Camara, Delia Lisette Chambers
Screenplay by: Clement Virgo
Production Design by: Jason Clarke
Cinematography by: Guy Godfree
Film Editing by: Kye Meechan
Costume Design by: Hanna Puley
Set Decoration by: Richard Brooks-Racicot
Art Direction by: John Kim
Music by: Todor Kobakov
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Vertical Entertainment
Release Date: September 9, 2022 (TIFF), August 4, 2023 (United Btates)
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