FARMING DISC D: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. UK. 107 min. Sep 14, 10 pm, Scotiabank 11. See listing. Rating: NN
In his feature debut, actor Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Oz, Lost) writes and directs the story of his own life as a teenage skinhead in the Essex borough of Tilbury in the mid-80s – the result of self-loathing turned outward, thanks to his feelings of abandonment when his Nigerian parents left him to be raised by a white foster mother (played in the film by Kate Beckinsale).
It’s a hell of a story, but Farming left me feeling that Akinnuoye-Agbaje – who also appears in the film as his own father, and performs roughly half of the songs on the soundtrack – was perhaps too close to the subject to tell it with the clarity it demands: this is a howl of pain that drowns out nuance. We never really get inside the mind of the tormented lead (Damson Idris), most of the supporting characters are one-dimensional, and the ending feels like it was stitched together in post-production. Gugu Mbatha-Raw admirably fleshes out the role of a sympathetic teacher through small glances and gestures, but she doesn’t get the screen time she deserves.
