Tribeca 2018: OBEY Review

OBEY

Jamie Jones’s first feature film comes with an interesting story about Leon (Marcus Rutherford), a nineteen years old boy living in the middle of London’s slums, dealing with an alcoholic mother (T’Nia Miller) and figuring what’s life is about. We see him with his friends and their day to day routine free from adult supervision.

Leon is struggling in every aspect of his life. Then he meets Twiggy (Sophie Kennedy Clark) a gorgeous, blond and bohemian girl living in a local squat. Leon immediately felt something intriguing about her, enough to later ditch his friends to enter into Sophie’s world. She provides some sort of calm to Leon which he’s never experienced coming from a tough background. Later we find Anton (Sam Gittings), a vibrant and charismatic guy which happened to be Sophie’s love interest. Leon wasn’t entirely thrown off by this new piece of information and some sort of modern romantic triangle begun.

Socially and politically charged. The entire story is set while England was enduring the riots during 2011 due to the murder of a black man by the police. The riots are like another character who gets itself in and out of the story effortlessly and show us a London not often seen in major movies which in a way give us more true behind the characters.

The performances are great, all of the actors did an astounding job. One of the best performances was by T’Nia Miller, who did marvelous work with the portrayal of Leon’s mother

Cinematographically, the movie is superb. Amazing photography and spectacular sound design. It’s definitely worthy to watch it in the theaters. This might be Jamie Jones first feature film but he is definitely no amateur. One of the best films on Tribeca Film Festival 2018