Farming

Suicide Squad's Adewale AkinnuoyeAgbaje turns writer/director to revisit his own youth in a striking if unsophisticated biopic. As a child, Enitan's Nigerian parents have him raised by a white family in '60s London - the 'farming' that the title refers to. As a teen (Damson Idris, compelling), Enitan falls in with a white-supremacist skinhead gang. Yes, really. The shocking true story is undeniably fascinating, but it's underserved by the somewhat unpolished filmmaking; at times the low budget feels all too apparent. Still, Idris shows true potential, and Kate Beckinsale plays pleasingly against type as Enitan's workingclass adoptive mum.

A story that needed to be told - moving! A good interpretaion of a troubled UK - in troubled times - Good performance by Beckinsale - stole the show

I was not aware of the "farming" practice... But i'm "happy" - kind of - to have discovered it with this movie. The only fact that it is based on the writer's life made it so strong and so, deep! I recommend this movie to anyone interested into this topic - or anyone who enjoy great movies! There is some images that really hit at the right place... Damson Idris is really something... His role must have been hard to do but he nailed it like... NAILED IT!... And what to say about Kate Beckinsale, simply stunning!!! Seriously, are you still reading ?.... Go watch this movie, and hit like NOW!

Those negative reviews for this movie are a joke. People need to leave their personal feelings and viewpoints out of it when they are reviewing a movie. And those petty enough to call the director out as a "liar," claiming "this never happened" nonsense is equally ridiculous; it's a movie, created to entertain and or educate. Who cares if it's fact or fiction? The people with this complaint probably believe that Hollywood trash like "Pearl Harbor" is not mostly fiction. On to the technical aspects of this movie, (something that actually matters), "Farming" is a beautifully, artfully shot slice of eye candy, which is ironic considering the grotesquely ugly themes of this difficult movie. Kate Beckinsale is utterly believable as the Cockney speaking Londoner who brings extra cash into the house by raising the Nigerian children left in her care by parents who don't have the means to raise them. Growing up in a completely White surrounding, where most everyone seems to be at least a little racist, and sometimes intensely racist against the people who's skin color is the same as young Enitan, the Nigerian boy, thrust into this alien world where everyone looks different from him. This film is basically about self identity, and how our surroundings and upbringing shape the person we become, and how our minds work. So although Enitan is Black, he grows up like his peers, despising people with black skin. What an insane and unique theme for a film..FINALLY something different. When Enitan joins up with the skinhead gang who had been torturing him, things become quite intense indeed. He calls himself Andy and shaves off his offending afro, so desperate to be among the people he relates to, even as they hate him and abuse him to no end. Movies about skinhead culture are rare, maybe one appears every 10 years or so. This one stands out with the best of them, including "This Is England," "Romper Stomper," and is especially similar in tone to "Made In Britain" with Tim Roth. Also worthy of praise is the acting in "Farming," as everyone turns in intensely believable performances. John Dagleish gives an especially ferocious performance as 'Levi,' the leader of the Tilbury skinheads, and Damson Idris' portrayal of the tortured, self loathing Enitan is brave and faultless. This movie is destined for cult status as it finds it's right audience. Those pathetic 1 star reviews prove that this film reached the wrong audience. Oh well, "Blade Runner" was also a flop when it first came out, so only time will tell. I recommend "Farming" to fans of edgy cinema that doesn't shy away from uncomfortable scenarios, and also to those interested in the Skinhead youth culture of the 70's and 80's. Similar to "The Krays" and "Legend," thankfully this is also a British production, so it manages to avoid the sappy, moralizing and PC garbage that Hollywood feels the need to inject into it's productions.

Being the directing and/or screenwriting debut of a well-known actor always loads a movie with a lot of baggage and expectations, for every critical darling like "Good Will Hunting" and "Gone Baby Gone" you get a forgettable "In the Land of Blood and Honey" or "Déficit". The baggage only gets heavier when it also happens to be openly based on the actor's own life story. The last such case of this double-duty debut I can think of lead to the multi-award winning and nominated "Lady Bird" by Greta Gerwig, so... no pressure.

"Farming" is British actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's telling of his own life story having been "farmed out" as a baby in the late 1960s to a couple in Tilbury. This was a common practice with African, mostly Nigerian, couples in the UK, where they would hire white, British foster parents to care for their children in the hope that it would lead to better lives for them. Many of these white families were working-class, not indifferent to the pay involved in fostering and unprepared for the unique challenges that the race relations of the practice could lead to. Adewale's film avatar Enitan is also farmed out, taken back for a few years by his biological parents to their native Nigeria, has constant identity crises after his return to England and these result in him joining a white supremacist skinhead gang.

As a testament to its staying cultural impact, Dave Chappelle's "Black Klansman" character is probably the first thing that comes to mind when picturing a black person joining a white supremacist group, but the situation is not even remotely played for laughs here. For the most part, "Farming" is brutal, Enitan's crisis and isolation, strong enough to make him want to join any group that'll take him even if it's just to hate on him, is greatly portrayed in all its troubling phases by Damson Idris (the actor playing him as a child, along with the rest of the child performers are unfortunately a lot less successful). Damson is not alone in carrying the movie, his strongest peer being an electrifying John Dagleish, playing the skinhead gang's leader with such power that one could understand Eni's wish to follow him, even through the obvious hate. Keeping the film from becoming monotonously bleak is an incredibly stylish production design (even if some locations are clearly too modern for their time setting) and the occasional gorgeous, almost classic, grainy stock, high-contrast photography coupled with a great selection of songs related to the Black British experience.

Among the rest of the cast, Kate Beckinsale is to be noted as she's never before been seen playing a character like this toxic-yet-watchable mother, and she does it well, it's just a shame that the character itself is almost a stock one in modern drama thanks to "Tonya", "The Fighter" and the already-mentioned "Lady Bird". AAA playing the avatar of his own father is interesting too, for the role this might have in his own process of dealing with the events depicted.

For all its audiovisual strengths the movie unfortunately falls short on the story department specially near the end. In an attempt to make the previous brutality end in less of a downer note, the final minutes try to wrap everything up a tad too nicely. This along with some unsure pacing decisions denote the nature of this movie as an opera prima, fortunately not to the extent of detracting from the end result though. Finally, considering the U.S.'s role as the leading cultural force in the world, where most of the art related to the race relations of black people originates from, it is refreshing to see a different aspect of these as they happen in other countries, specially when they're told so vividly by creatives who've lived through and been inspired by them.