Clement Virgo’s “Brother” is the kind of movie whose opening scene is obviously meant to serve as a skeleton key for the rest of the story to come, but this decades-spanning drama — a lyrical and probing adaptation of David Chariandy’s novel about two siblings coming of age under the care of their Trinadadian single mother in the suburbs of Toronto — is so unstuck in time and shot through with raw emotion that its clunkier moments tend to function like tender maps back to the heart of the matter.

It starts with a formative memory that feels like a legend, as scrawny teenage Michael (“The Last of Us” actor Lamar Johnson) and his very big bro Francis (“The Underground…

The title has a double meaning, both in its literal sense and in its figurative meaning in how black men are perpetually on edge and perceived as suspect in many neighbourhoods of North America - Canada is not excluded from this prejudice.

This is a character study of the older brother’s tragic downfall as seen in cinematic slow motion through the naive eyes of his little brother, who has no one else to look up to. We never get inside the mind of the strong and silent elder prodigal son, who carries the weight of his family’s disappointments and regrets. He carries on only to fill the void left by their deadbeat father and overworked mother, all the while repressing…

Two Jamaican-Canadian brothers hailing from Scarborough, a neighborhood in Toronto, look up at a soaring transmission tower. The older sibling Francis (Aaron Pierre, “The Underground Railroad”) explains to his younger brother Michael (Lamar Johnson, “The Hate U Give”) that the higher you climb, the more the reverberations of the electricity buzz and shake you. If you make one false move, it can instantly fry you. But they can make it to the top for the area’s best view if Michael follows Francis’ every motion. These inseparable siblings could not be more different; Francis is handsome, broad, and undaunted. Michael is hesitant and tiny. Nevertheless, the pair implicitly trust each other. And they begin, step-by-step, climbing the tower that will become…

Like Scarborough the year before it, Brother finds itself within a pantheon of great recent Canadian cinema - especially when we're to talk films set within the Scarborough district of Toronto. But the whole picture we're getting is one that feels like it's building us up, given the way the film is structured - taking place over the course of twenty years, we're seeing a complicated picture of grief, one that only racks up the tensions all the more before the ultimatum is reached. Nonetheless, it's hard enough to come out of Brother without the general impression that it's clearly built out of love and that's also what makes it so heartbreaking.

There's obviously a lot more that I want…

I want to root for this: it's an indie film from a Black Canadian director about serious issues. And I really enjoyed Virgo's work on the The Book of Negroes miniseries. But this has a serious lack of imagination; it's deeply felt but cliched, which means it's painfully earnest without being insightful. It's about a Jamaican immigrant family in three time periods, focused on two brothers: first, when the two are little kids; second, when they're teenagers; third, when one is a little older and the other is dead. The intention is obvious: we see them in their innocence, then when that innocence is destroyed, then when the surviving brother has to pick up the pieces. And we see these…

A moving coming of age story of two immigrant Jamaican brothers set in early 90s Scarborough. The movie jumps through glimpses and vignettes set to a gorgeous score, showcasing themes of family, race, violence, masculinity, identity and place. 

This is clearly personal and meaningful to those involved and to many watching too. Clement Virgo and the actors were emotional during the Q&A. The audience as well. Scarborough on the big screen - how can you not be? I wish I loved this a bit more. I was moved by witnessing the crowds emotive reactions more than I was the film itself.

I thought the first act was strong. I felt as thought I was watching what could have been a…