Brother (2022)

• Year: 2022
• Released: 22 Sep 2023
• Country: Canada
• Adwords: 14 wins & 17 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15474896/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/brother
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/brother
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: N/A
• Genre: Drama
• Runtime: 119 min
• Writer: David Chariandy, Clement Virgo
• Director: Clement Virgo
• Cast: Lamar Johnson, Aaron Pierre, Marsha Stephanie Blake
• Keywords:

7.2/10

Brother Storyline

Propelled by the pulsing beats of Toronto’s early hip hop scene, BROTHER is the story of Francis and Michael, sons of Caribbean immigrants maturing into young men. Exploring themes of masculinity, identity and family, a mystery unfolds during the sweltering summer of 1991, and escalating tensions set off a series of events that change the course of the brothers’ lives forever. BROTHER crafts a timely story about the profound bond between siblings, the resilience of a community and the irrepressible power of music.

Brother Photos

Brother Torrents Download

Brother Subtitles Download

Brother Movie Reviews

A powerful film

Withdrawn, and a bit timid and unsure. Their mother (Marsha Stephanie Blake), a Jamaican immigrant, works long hours to support the boys, so Pierre becomes a de facto guardian for Johnson.

Flashing forward 10 years, we learn that Pierre has died and Blake has been nearly catatonic with grief for a decade. When Johnson’s ex-girlfriend Kiana Madeira comes to visit, she initiates a chain of events that breaches the cocoon of grief that Johnson and Blake are living in.

This film is really beautifully shot, creating a really vivid sense of place, and it’s wonderfully acted by the three leads. It alternates between the two timelines, showing how Pierre’s restless ambition (he’s involved with the nascent Toronto hip hop scene) and refusal to be anything less than a person with dignity sends him on a tragic spiral, and how the aftermath of this tragedy impacts his family a decade later.

It’s got a few issues. It’s really deliberate pace slows down a bit too much in the last half hour, and since we sort of see everything from Johnson’s perspective, it has trouble making his motives as clear as everyone else’s. Still, it’s a powerful story well told and acted, and a really vivid depiction of the Toronto Caribbean community.

Hard to watch, but the ring of truth

It follows a Canadian-Jamaican family in Scarborough, Ontario, over 20 years from 1981 to 2001.

Ruth (Marsha Stephanie Blake) is a Jamaican immigrant to Toronto, Canada. She has two sons–Francis (Jacob Williams/Aaron Pierre) and Michael (David Odion/Sabastian Nigel Singh/Lamar Johnson). Francis is older than Michael by a couple of years and is protective of his family in the father’s absence. By his late teens, Francis is a large, physically intimidating man who acts with confidence but has some questionable friends. Michael is smaller, darker, less self-confident, and more studious in school. In high school, Michael is attracted to Aisha (Delia Lisette Chambers/Kiana Madeira), a Canadian-Jamaican neighbor whose father came from the same area of Jamaica as Ruth.

The story jumps back and forth between 1981, 1991, when a tragic event occurs, and 2001 when Michael is trying to hold things together. We see the bleakness of many Caribbean immigrant lives, the aura of violence that is never far away, and the problematic relationship with a lily-white 1991 Scarborough police force.

“Brother” is the story of family love persisting through trauma, shattered dreams of a hopeful Jamaican musician, and territorial conflicts between gangs of similar backgrounds, with a final glimmer of resolution at the end. “Brother” was a hard movie to watch because of its ring of truth and many dark scenes. The chemistry between Blake, Pierre, and Johnson was excellent. Madeira was also good. My biggest complaint was that I found the rapid jumping back and forth in time sometimes confusing. And I wonder if the metaphor of hydro-tower-climbing interspersed throughout the film really worked. Nonetheless, “Brother” is one of the better Canadian movies I’ve recently seen.

Profoundly moving

Sometimes the qualities that make something really beautiful are the hardest to put into words, and to me “Brother” falls into this category. The character Francis profoundly loves those closest to him, and his love for his boyfriend cruelly leads him to events ultimately resulting in his tragic death. Francis’ mother and his brother Michael are devastated, and it is the depth of Francis’ love for his brother and his unshakable belief in him that give Michael the courage to rise up as the man he must be to rescue his mother and himself from life-destroying despair. To me, this realization came into focus at the movie’s end as the brothers are finally sitting down together at the top of the electic tower they climbed together, with Francis glancing at his brother as if to say “I love and value you so much that I couldn’t stand to lose you, but I KNEW that you could do it”.