Brown Girl Begins

Try and watch this whole thing. I dare you...everything about this movie is sub-par. I cant think of one positive thing to say about it...

Created as a prequel to Brown Girl in the Ring, 1998, Nalo Hopkinson, a Canadian Jamaican Sci Fi Novel, first time that it has been done.

Written and Directed by Sharon Lewis, a big fan of the novel, she wanted to create the prequel based off the novel, taking place in 2049. Her first Sci Film as well.

Mashup of the novel's futuristic Canadian Toronto community along with Jamaican element and its spiritual tales, with an International Opera Star, Measha Brueggergossman, it tells a coming of age story for it lead as has to face a key challenge in her life and overcome her own fears.

The story does get intense and somewhat hard to follow at times. The budget for it was fairly low and that can be telling at times. I was impressed by Nigel Shawn Williams in that he played three different roles and the persona was quite different for each character.

If I had time I would watch it again. I don't regret the time I took watching it.

Ok I've seen the movie twice, once on my own and then once as part of an event.

I guess I should open with it's not great.

It's trying to adapt Sci-fi with an absolutely minuscule budget. It's props don't look like much beyond props, the location struggles to feel like anything futuristic or dystopian, and the special effects are limited (luckily not used enough to become distracting.)

The writing is weak, there are a lot of moments where it's unclear what's happening and exposition is often delivered in clunky or even non-sensical ways such as characters reciting what to them is common knowledge out loud, on one occasion even "studying" basic common knowledge elements to their world, this "studying" being completely irrelevant to what it was supposed to be for later. Additionally the main character is often presented with a conflict only to be handed a solution not five minutes later with no buildup or even explanation as to where said solution came from.

The performances are really scattershot. Some are pretty good, some are a little awkward, one is amazing, and a couple are almost unbearably awful. Of these the lead is a little out of their depth, often having weak delivery or just feeling a little... off in major emotional scenes.

If there's a proper positive I can give it, the cinematography is pretty great and main character's spiritual ally/frenemy really is a great performance worthy of experiencing.

What I have to acknowledge though is the film was a passion project for almost everyone involved and took a long time to get done. It's also one of the first entirely Toronto made films to get major media attention and it's attempting to be a genre that hasn't really been brought to film in any well known films (Mystical Sci-Fi)

The movie is a little overly ambitious. It tries to do a lot with very little money and a very limited runtime and it comes short of those lofty goals 9/10 times but if it's an awkward first step toward not only the cast and crew being able to improve but for more Toronto based writers, directors, producers, and actors being able to make films I'm not going to knock it for trying.

So, so bad. Not sure how this got nominated for anything. Was it the only movie in it's category?

This film took me a whole week to watch, as I had to keep turning it off when I felt myself getting sleepy or just unable to deal with the horrible acting. I won't say much else except that I regret watching it. Will never do so again.