The directorial debut of Daniel Kaluuya's (Black Panther, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) The Kitchen (co-directed with Kibwe Tavares) was heavily-anticipated and at last, the British sci-fi film is streaming on Netflix.
Kaluuya also co-wrote the screenplay, alongside Joe Murtagh (Gangs of London).
SFF Gazette has followed the project since its first look was revealed back in August and the film screened at the BFI London Film Festival.
Spinning out of the movie's film festival screening, The Kitchen received an 80% approval rating from 15 reviews, with an average composite score of 6.5 out of 10 on the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate review site.
Now that, the film has started streaming worldwide on Netflix, the number of reviews have ballooned to 45 but has its approval rating dropped?
Surprisingly, no. In fact, it's increased, jumping from 80% to 84%.
In a fresh round of reviews, The Verge wrote: "What makes The Kitchen feel so distinct is the way its subtle touches of speculative futurism work to highlight realities about how at-risk communities are surveilled and how riots end up becoming people’s organic response to state-sponsored violence."
Peyton Robinson of RogerEbert.com stated: "The Kitchen” almost reads like a damning premonition of what’s to come as the gap between rich and poor widens to even more damning degrees."
Empire called the film a solid directorial debut for Kaluuya and Tavares: "Not as revolutionary as Children Of Men, nor as wild as Attack The Block, The Kitchen is still solid British sci-fi with a social-realist flavour. An auspicious directorial debut from Tavares and Kaluuya."
However (and somewhat alarmingly), the audience score for the film has a dismal 53% approval rating. Typically, most films have this reversed on Rotten Tomatoes- with a high audience score and a low critic's score.
Have Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares made a sci-fi art-house film that the general audience doesn't enjoy? Let us know in the comment section below.
The Kitchen is said to be set in a future where, "the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits. All forms of social housing have been eradicated and only The Kitchen remains: a community that refuses to move out of the place they call home. The film follows Izi (Kane Robinson), who lives there by necessity and is desperately trying to find a way out, and 12-year-old Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), who has lost his mother and is searching for a family, as they struggle to forge a relationship in a system that is stacked against them."
Kaluuya previously told Netflix, "The idea came from when I was sitting in my barber’s shop listening to a boy boasting about doing these million-pound heists. I dug into it a bit deeper and then I saw that these kids are doing it for £200. They were robbing millions of pounds of jewels for £200. That says something profound about where we’re at at the moment in this city."
The film received a limited theatrical run in the UK before releasing worldwide on Netflix.
The cast includes Kane Robinson, Jedaiah Bannerman, Hope Ikpoku Jr, Teija Kabs, Demmy Ladipo, Cristale, and BackRoad Gee.
Michael Fassbender is an executive producer.