Queen of Glory review – gloriously low-key comedy of immigrant life | Film
This indie comedy from actor-turned-director Nana Mensah has been sweetly described as a love letter to immigrant daughters. Her story – a few second-generation Ghanaian-American lady, the obligations she feels to her household, and their expectations – feels acquainted, however by no means “Hollywood-ified”. Mensah stars herself, makes use of her real-life dad and mom’ Christian bookshop within the Bronx as a location, and casts her aunt in a supporting function. It’s all impressively pulled off on what appears like a finances of Blu Tack and sticky tape.
Mensah is Sarah, a lecturer and PhD scholar within the neuro-oncology division at Columbia College. When her mum dies all of a sudden, Sarah takes the subway again to the Bronx. She’s an solely baby and her dad (Oberon Okay A Adjepong) – lengthy separated however not divorced from her mum – flies again from Accra. Parked on the couch watching Arsenal matches, he expects to be waited available and foot. Sarah’s work is sort of actually curing most cancers, however the one query anybody in her household is asking is when is she going to begin making infants.
There’s such intelligence and subtlety in Mensah’s script and efficiency as she weaves in her concepts and frustrations, and but the movie is rarely “about” these items – it’s a humorous and emotionally satisfying comedy. Sarah organises a wake for her mum, then the normal Ghanaian ceremony. Her plan is to shut down the bookshop her mum owned. However the extra time she spends there the more serious she feels about that call. The place is a neighbourhood establishment, and its sole worker – a mellow weed-smoking ex-con known as Pitt (Meeko Gattuso) – actually wants the job.
A narrative of grief and household therapeutic is nothing new, however every part right here is recent – partly as a result of this world feels so totally genuine. There are snippets of archive footage from Ghana, performing virtually just like the reminiscences of Sarah’s dad and mom’ technology. For such a slender movie –simply 78 minutes lengthy – it delivers greater than it guarantees.
