Obey | Jamie Jones | Tribeca 2018
Obey is the debut feature film offering from director Jamie Jones. Taking place during the tensions of the real life 2011 London riots, this is a film whose motives and themes still feel perfectly relevant in the age of Brexit.
London is sliding towards a time of violent social unrest as it’s youth are quickly growing towards discontent with the status quo and those who are supposed to be paving the way for their future.
Our lead character is Leon (Marcus Rutherford), who has just returned to live at home with his well-meaning but alcoholic single mother (T’Nia Miller) but also stuck dealing with the lowlife abusive boyfriends that she brings home. He finds solace in the boxing ring but also in a new love with a girl named Twiggy (Sophie Kennedy Clark).
In-between all these tensions grow within his friend group as they want to partake in the riots and bring the violence to the streets directly to the police. He avoids this conflict as he is falling for Twiggy and doesn’t want to jeopardize the potential new relationship.
The frustrations that he’s feeling are put on pause but it all is set to unravel when he finds out his relationship isn’t quite what it seems and soon he gravitates back to the tense situations out on the street that he’s been trying to pull away from. Betrayed by love both in the outside world and at home, what else is a young man to do?
Jones mixes real-life footage from the riots with his own and it works to a varying degree of success. While not all of the film works or feels like a new commentary about working-class life and frustrations, there’s enough there to make this a striking debut effort.
Mainly, the promising debut performance from Marcus Rutherford and the heartbreaking performance by T’Nia Miller as his mother. Both actors elevate the material they’re given and make something we’ve seen done plenty of times before still very much powerful and effective.
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