Charles Blakey has lived in a ghost house all his life. In the family for eight generations, the spreading residence in chilly sag Harbor is the Blakey Crown Jewel: Beautiful, Big and all theirs. And without a doubt, bad things have happened there, an idea that the first time filmmaker Nadia Latif extends (and Streetcchhhesss) to Wild ends in “The man in my basement,” Her ambitious about the spread of Walter Mosley novel.
Although clarity is not always required for a project as thorny as this, cohesion is. It will work, and soon.
We know the house has come into Charles’ (Corey Hawkins) blood and when film Opens, that’s pretty much everything has left. He has no money, no job, no family and hardly any friends – details that Latif delivers with style, smarts and lots of tensions in the film’s elegant first act. Charles’ isolation seems to be not only self -imposed, but also part of a larger (and honestly, quite bold) when it comes to character building: he is not just someone who has haunted or has made mistakes. He is one bad person.
When he goes to see his cousin at the local bank, she will not even let him in the building. She chooses to have a tough conversation outside, one that includes her hard explanation that Charles “got what he asked for.” Later, when he calls his aunt peaches to ask for cash, her breath and “… oh” she exhales when she realizes who is at the other end of the line tells everything we need to know. He is needing his friends. He shoots people away, shooting them by force. He doesn’t have much to contribute to the world, and he really doesn’t try to change it.
What he has, however, is a basement. A big one.
The film’s attitude, which was set in 1994 and exhibited with lots of period-appropriate details, enables all kinds of mystery (and one, quite funny, rudimentary internet search). When the smiling Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe) arrives at Charles door one day and asks if he might rent out his “stand-up basement” for a couple of months, we Already know that he really needs the cash. But does Anniston do? And really, what does he know? How does he know that? Why does he know that?
These questions – and more, so many more – are stacked during the film’s driving time (almost 115 minutes, and you will feel each). While Charles originally beams on Anniston’s offer (perhaps the only time the audience will be with him when it comes to his choices and reactions), it sticks with him. When he starts clearing that basement – either to make room for Bennet or to find things to sell, it is never really explained – we know what comes next. After all, it is in the film’s title.
When Anniston eventually offers Charles $ 65,000 for two months (!) In the said basement, you can hardly blame him for going for it. Even the drug visions that start to torment him, the scary nightmares (hope scares Ahoy, and so many of them cheap) cannot deter Charles from taking up Anniston on the offer. Sure, stranger, came alive in my basement for two months and for a thousand dollars a day, why not? This may be the last time we understand something Charles does.
When Anniston moves in, Latif and Kinematographer Ula Pontikos make the early interactions really count. Charles gets boxed by the camera, who looks at Anniston with close reverence. A shared diopter shot is almost too show, but it does not impair its skill. Unfortunately, despite its exciting and well -assembled first act, things are out and fast.
Think about the introduction of Narciss Gully (Anna Diop), who arrives early to check out Charles many exciting family items. Narciss, a curator and historian who not only Know her stuff in terms of African history, but really values That, initially beams at Charles, who seems most driven to sell this “rubbish” for profit. But when Charles (maybe) has a change in heart, he turns Jittery, Stammering and Odd – and then shows up on Narciss’ Quilt Shop to beat her on an idea that should disperse some perceptions of what kind of person he is. And yet she doesn’t completely turn from him. Why?
It is perhaps the key to what is developing somewhere else. When Anniston reveals some of his big plan for Charles, he doesn’t completely turn from him either. But why? While Mosley’s book was much more concerned about the open racial elements in men’s findings – with Charles complex family history, including fascinating details about how Blakes were never enslaved, a much bigger role – Latif’s version on all kinds of other elements, muddling of Mosley’s original story played.
The fact that Anniston’s offer is related is a given; That Charles does a deal with a very bad man is obvious. However, the devil is not only on the screen, it is in the details and Latif’s movie cannot pull them together.
Rating: C+
“The Man in My Källare” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2025. Andscape releases it in theaters on Friday 12 September, with a streaming edition at Hulu to follow.
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