Jerk
2018 · 9m · UK
Directed by Raine Allen-Miller
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Winston, an elderly Jamaican man from the Windrush generation, is the warm, smiling face of his neighborhood jerk chicken shop — but behind his cheerful public persona he is quietly battling severe depression. The film follows the day his mask begins to slip, building toward an emotional breakdown and a quiet moment of solidarity with his community.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Grainy-at-home, bright-in-public visual grammar for a Windrush-generation depression story — a meaningfully specific subject and a working formal idea. I'm tired of mental-health shorts but this one earned a look.
Raine Allen-Miller's pre-Rye Lane work, externalizing depression through the grammar of private grain versus public crispness, centering a Windrush-generation patriarch — this is the rare British short that treats Black masculine interiority with proper weight. Steve McQueen would recognize the rigor.
The visual grammar split — grainy low-light in his private space, bright crisp imagery in the public restaurant — externalizes Winston's psychology as production design rather than performance, which is the harder craft choice. 9:20 from Raine Allen-Miller before she made Rye Lane; you can feel the eye.
Reviews
A bleak and authentic depiction of depression... Allen-Miller has one more trick up her talented sleeves to really put her audience through the emotional gamut.
A supportive hand on the shoulder and the simple line 'I know' transforms the film from despair into a tale of solidarity and support — it's the kind of ending that could leave you wrecked.
Festivals
- BFI London Film Festival 2018