Here at FandomWire, we review the new Netflix film The Kitchen, and the article is spoiler-free.
The Netflix British import The Kitchen is a cross between Athena and Children of Men. It is a visually evocative take on a bleak future where the world chooses where you fit in. Even though this story takes place in the future, the backdrop is just an excuse to begin a story about socioeconomic issues.
Except that this movie has its heart in the right place. At its core, it is a modern-day film about the aching feeling of being needed, even the feeling of being the one someone counts on. This aspect gives The Kitchen more soulfulness than one would expect.
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Netflix’s The Kitchen Synopsis and Review
The story follows Izi (Top Boy’s Kane Robinson), a thirty-something navigating a bleak future in a dystopian London. Izi works in an eco-friendly funeral home, where someone’s ashes can be converted to grow a plant of your choosing. He’s all about sales, and he’s saving up to move. He lives in a proud community, The Kitchen, which is being forced into a transition.
The kitchen is social housing. The government wants to clear the area out. Presumably, the rich can gentrify the area. This is an area that rents government areas to low-income families. Most of the residents need work. They are forced to pay exorbitant prices and leave an area they call home.
Izi is looking to have a good wife. He wants to move to one of those luxury apartments where you can change the skyline view from your window at your leisure. His life is about to change when he attends the funeral of a friend. He meets her son, Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), and begins to look out for him.
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The Kitchen is a quietly effective dystopian thriller
The Kitchen is a quietly compelling dystopian thriller about the future with modern themes. Directed by Kibwe Tavares (Robot & Scarecrow) and Daniel Kaluuya (Nope), while working from a script from Kaluuya and Joe Murtagh (American Animals), their film is a highly patient character study. Tavares and Kaluuya are much more interested in how some things never change.
Even in the future, themes that incorporate economic inequality, housing affordability, discrimination, social injustice, poverty, and underemployment emerge. Just look at the faces in The Kitchen; this area is segregated from the rest of society. The community was placed there, and now the powers at hand want to take it away.
The story and atmosphere are vivid and immersive. Scenes are played out stoically, without words, but only with Kano’s beautiful expressions, full of thoughtful melancholy. The movie is on a considerable budget. However, Tavers and Kaluuya get their money’s worth through well-constructed scenes of disturbing police raids.
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Is The Kitchen Worth Watching?
As the story grows more tense with each raid, the stakes increase because the relationship between Kano’s Izi and Bannerman’s Benji begins to deepen. Now, the plot involving them is rather obvious. The script doesn’t do the subplot any favors by not properly bearding the twist, which is subtle.
That’s where The Kitchen will be divisive for many. For one, the themes divide many today. The other is the dystopian backdrop, which tells the story of the paternal relationship between two strangers.
That makes the movie, at the very least, interesting. By exploring a universal theme that is affected by broader socioeconomic issues like current societal norms, cultural influences, and expectations. This makes The Kitchen provocative, robust, and cerebral cinematic candy for the brain.
You can stream The Kitchen only on Netflix on January 19th, 2024.
Grade: 7/10
