THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO – Review

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO is the story of a man in love with a house, the grand home in San Francisco his family once owned but lost, but it is also a wistful tale about friendship, the love of a city, the meaning of home, and a longing for what has been lost. It is as much a portrait of San Francisco, and how it is changing, as it is a tale of two friends, young black men living on the margins of the city where they were born but where they can no longer afford to live.

There is a lot of metaphor, some magical realism and a bit of Wes Anderson in this gentle, sometimes funny, sometimes ironic, poignant film. THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO is a lyrical kind of film that shifts from a gentle humor to something closer to tragic over its course.

Jimmie Fails (Jimmy Fails) is a third generation San Franciscan who pines for the grand home his family once owned, and where he grew up, in the Fillmore District, an area rich with history as a black and immigrant neighborhood and known as the Harlem of the West. Jimmie travels around his city on his skateboard, in the company of his childhood best friend Mont (Jonathan Majors), an artist and playwright. While Mont works on his drawings and the play he is writing, Jimmy’s project is caring for the grand old house, lovingly painting or repairing it – even though it not longer belongs to his family.

Although the stately house looks like it dates to the 1800s, Jimmy proudly tells everyone his grandfather built it. The neighborhood has gentrified, the houses are worth millions, and the Jimmy’s family home is now occupied by an affluent older white couple. While the elderly husband is fine with Jimmy showing up to paint the house or tend the garden, his wife goes ballistic every time she sees Jimmy affectionately working on the house’s exterior and grounds, and chases him off.

It is comic, of course, but Jimmy’s obsessive love of the house has a sweetness to it. Jimmy lives with Mont’s grandfather (Danny Glover), where he rents a space on the floor of his friend’s room, which is in the grandfather’s garage, a comic dig at San Francisco’s famously tight housing situation. Grandpa is blind but loves movies, which he watches by having his grandson narrate the events on screen. While grandpa owns a nice Victorian, although not as grand as Jimmy’s house, it is in an decaying industrial waterfront area, near an area rumored to be contaminated with radioactive waste. Still, developers are eyeing the spot near the water.

The idea for this film grew out of the long friendship between director Joe Talbot, a fifth generation San Franciscan, and lead actor Jimmie Fails, based on some of Fails’ childhood. Part of the strength of this wistful, bittersweet, ironically comic film is its script by Joe Talbot, Jimmie Fails and Rob Richert, and Joe Talbot’s sure-handed direction, in an impressive directorial debut. But credit also goes to the fine performances by Jimmy Fail and Jonathan Majors, who imbue their characters with a poignancy that is heartbreaking but also an unexpected universal humanity.

Jimmie’s longing for his house is about longing for his place in the world, and for family too, a family with whom he is only loosely connected. His father (Rob Morgan) is a kind of big-talking, flashy guy with a hint of con artist about him, his mother (Tichina Arnold) is mostly absent, and other relatives are scattered further out from the city. The family connection he sees between Mont and his grandfather is not there for Jimmie, who family seems to have been broken in some ways with the loss of the house.

The film’s title comes from the play Mont is writing and, in fact, the film’s narrative is structured like a three-act play. In the first act, Jimmy pines for his house. When the house is suddenly vacant, Jimmy seizes his chance and just moves in. Overjoyed, he sets to repairing the interior with the same loving care as he lavished on the exterior, and even dreams of buying it. The idyll doesn’t last and the film takes a darker turn with revelations, twists, and a touch of tragedy towards the end.

This charming bittersweet film focuses on the story of these two friends instead of making overt social commentary but the commentary is there in the background. As Jimmy moves around the city, we see a San Francisco where only two kinds of people live – the wealthy mostly white homeowners and the homeless. The middle class, people of modest means, and anyone of color, has been left out, pushed to the fringes or outskirts of the area. It is a problem of income inequality that plagues other large cities but it is particularly poignant in the case of San Francisco, given its history as the center for the Summer of Love, gay pride and progressive movements. Not only are black people pushed out but so are the colorful characters who used to give the city a distinct flavor, exemplified in one scene by the older man sitting naked on the bench waiting for a bus with Jimmy. In a city for millionaires only, he is not welcome either.

This film is not an angry one, raging against the invasion of the millionaires, but instead a thoughtful one. The tone is nostalgic, about a fondly remembered childhood and lost treasures. Jimmy loves the fine house he grew up in, and returns to care for it, almost like caring for a loved one. He does not resent the white people living there, just their neglect of his beloved house. The house may not longer belong to his family but his heart will always belong to the house. There is a strange magic that family homes, or even just historic homes, can work on the heart, as anyone who has renovated an older home knows.

This is not a plot-driven film, action heavy or simple straight-forward kind of film, and audiences looking for that should look elsewhere,. But for those with patience and open to this film’s lyricism and sweetly sad dreamy metaphor, THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO has many rewards.

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO opens Friday, June 21, at the Plaza Frontenac Cinema and Tivoli Theater.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars