It’s been a long and strange journey for Sarah Gavron’s “Rocks” in the U.S. The British film had premiered at TIFF in 2019 only to get released to rapturous reviews in the U.K and Europe the following year. It has finally been, for a better word, dumped on Netflix this past weekend Stateside. With barely any coverage of its release, this coming-of-age story about teenage girls and female friendship, starring a majority of non-professional actors, will now have to build word-of-mouth buzz via American Netflix viewers to get the full recognition it deserves.
Directed by Gavron (Suffragette), this incisively socio-political film follows its eponymous protagonist, a 15-year-old (Bukky Bakray), living in South London with her single mother and younger brother, Emmanuel (D’angelou Osei Kissiedu). As if their stringent lower-class living environment wasn’t enough, Rocks comes home one day to some cash for groceries and a note from her mom telling her that she left for somewhere undisclosed to “clear her head.” It’s not the first time this has happened, so Rocks shrugs it off by taking care of Emmanuel on her own, making sure they both go to school and get fed. However, what should have been a short absence grows into a week, and then another one; Rocks starts to panic. To make matters worse, their electricity is cut off and social services starts to pay visits.
Gavron’s film is an ode to youthful resonance. In search of her mother, Rocks skips school, leaves Emmanuel at a Russian hairdresser friend agreeing to babysit him, and with the help of a handful of her closest friends, including BFF Sumaya (Kosar Ali), wanders all around the inner city to find her. The result is an immersive exploration of neighborhoods filled with various different cultures, but subdued into impoverished conditions. The female adolescence at work is nothing short of spirited; here are 5 or so young women dealing with the situation in both humorous and gradually intelligent ways.
There’s a joyful rapport among these girls. The state of survival that the inner city has thrust upon them hasn’t diminished their communal joie-de-vivre. But there’s also the notion that for Rocks’ friends to lend a helping hand then maybe the uneasiest of decisions will have to be made. You can only hide or run away from social services for so long before you realize that maybe they are the only option left. This authentic, small, and deeply humane film is most interested in showing how, even in the harshest of times, there’s nothing more profound or rich as a community willing to lend a helping hand.
SCORE: B/B+
If the movie is as rough as some in the industry seem to fear, that teaser may have been less of a marketing campaign and more of a public plea for somebody to finally take the damn thing.