the last tree (2019) review
I grew up on the east coast of the United States in an environment so integrated I didn’t know integration was a thing. What reason would we have for separating ourselves? We are all different but the same. It was a defining moment realizing as a young adult that I didn’t draw parallels between skin color and character singularly due to my environment. In Cambridge, Massachusetts the value of an individual had nothing to do with pigmentation, religion, sexual preference or any other qualities of the ilk. I was lucky. We all embark on different and winding paths to establishing our personal identity and core beliefs. The Last Tree, directed and written by Shola Amoo, is a film about the beauty, struggles, and intellectual violence of one boy’s path. The movie begins by tenderly setting up protagonist Femi as having spent his earliest years as adopted son to a white mom. He has three white friends who see him as nothing less than a brother. That the scenes of the four boys playing football and innocently howling into the sky are presented as anything other than completely ordinary is cutting commentary on present day earth. Soon after reuniting against his will with his birth mother the film moves forward in time. Sam Adewunmi plays young adult Femi almost expressionlessly. His every movement is measured and indicates a person hardened by the stress of years of silent resentment towards his mother for tearing him from the only family he ever knew. The cinematography and haunting music adeptly express the dread and hopelessness permeating every moment of his life without losing sight of the fact that Femi is a good person pushed into bad decisions by circumstance. He has no desire for or interest in a life of crime but his vacant demeanor, borne from a lost childhood, lends him the ability to blend in anywhere and become anything. Adewunmi is a force of nature and does a venerable job portraying Femi’s calm yet simmering personality. Keep an eye out for Adewunmi’s next move. He has leading man written all over this performance.
The Last Tree receives a score of 9/10 for everyone. It’s a timely and relatable coming of age story with a star-making turn by director/writer Shola Amoo and lead actor Sam Adewunmi.