Alex Wheatle (2020, Steve McQueen) (Patreon)

42/100

With all due respect to hardcore auteurists and McQueen stans, it has not escaped my notice that I've enjoyed the Small Axe films/episodes/whatever that were co-written by Courttia Newland (Red, White and Blue; Lovers Rock) considerably more than the ones that were co-written by Alastair Siddons (all of the others, though I haven't yet watched Education as I write this). Both RW&B and Alex Wheatle are technically biopics, but the latter constantly feels constrained and impeded by its subject's history in ways that the former almost never does; despite my previous unfamiliarity with Wheatle, I spent much of the film wondering whether scene X relates to scene Y in any respect more meaningful than simply "Both were steps on his journey." (That's especially true of the '81 Brixton riot, which just sort of suddenly happens here, sans context or significant aftermath.) Even the film's most potentially potent element—Wheatle methodically reconfiguring his public persona, embracing the culture that had been denied to him by years in state care—feels incidental rather than instrumental. Not having read any of his books may have prevented me from perceiving how these events shaped him into an award-winning writer, I suppose, but relying on the viewer to make such connections seems foolhardy when it comes to any author who's not universally taught in schools (i.e., Shakespeare, Dickens, maybe three or four others at most). In this case, judging from other folks' reactions, I think it's less that I'm not part of the target audience (though I'm always willing to concede that) and more that the film amounts to a frustrating jumble of at best tangentially related fact-based episodes—which is to say, a biopic.