Final Rating: 3.5/5
The Trinbagonian filmmaker Damian Marcano has previously made one feature film that showcased his homeland back in 2013 but has since been cutting his teeth and honing his skills in American television. He directed multiple episodes of “Claws”, “Snowfall” and the upcoming HBO show produced by Adam McKay ”Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty”. He returns back to Trinidad and Tobago for the start of what he is calling his Caribbean Trilogy for his second feature film “CHEE$E”, based on a short film he made seven years earlier of the same name.
The film begins with a familiar trope, we are introduced to the main character Skimma, played by Akil Williams, during a moment of crisis. A helicopter is hovering above a residence as Skimma comes barging in telling the other people in the room to bury everything as a whole pile of marijuana sits on the table, far too much to easily hide away. Skimma begins to narrate about how the audience is probably wondering how he got into this situation, all that is missing is a record scratch to complete the oft used narrative device. We get transported back to the start of the story where Skimma explains that he lives in a part of the world “behind God’s back”. Turtle Village is so small that there are no banks or gas stations. It’s an off the grid spot that tourists visit to see the real parts of the island. No one is homeless in this village, but the people aren’t prosperous either. The main proprietors are Miss Maria, who runs a fried chicken spot, a bread maker, a corner store that doubles as a post office and a white man named Mr. Ottone, who came to visit the island years ago, fell in love with it, and opened a small cheese factory. This cheese factory is where Skimma works, making a small wage but learning a craft that seems so far removed from the everyday life he knows.
Skimma often tells his best friend Peter, played by Julio Prince, how he wants to leave the island and travel. This makes him start to think about how to make more money. At the same time Miss Maria’s daughter Rebecca, played by Yidah Leonard, tells Skimma that she is pregnant with his child. Despite at first questioning if it is really his, he comes to realize that he must be there for his future child, to change the course of familial trauma since his own father abandoned him before he was even born. Between wanting to better himself and make sure his unborn child is taken care of he takes a leap. He finds weed growing on the mountains and decides to harvest it, but in order to get around the very strict drug laws in the country he uses his cheese making skills to embed saran wrapped weed into the bricks of cheese he makes. This process of putting the weed in cheese that is still hot then gets cooled down unlocks something in the chemical makeup and causes smokers to have their third eye opened. This makes their product a hit on the streets.
Skimma is trying to earn as much money as possible while Rebecca is trying to convince him that the baby is his. When Rebecca reveals to her mother that she is pregnant, she gets kicked out of her church and is confined to house arrest by her family to avoid shaming them since Rebecca is not married to Skimma. All the while Skimma and Peter are trying to avoid the notice of the local police chief who is hellbent on making drug busts of any size to help grow his own stature.
The film is edited like a music video, we get gratuitous shots of the beautiful natural landscapes of the islands. Plenty of jungle covered mountains, miles of undisturbed beaches, clear night skies full of stars and a cold beer every time the sun starts to look a little too hot. The lighting is like a neon wonderland, greens, pinks, purples, blues and yellows dominate the screen giving a vibrant look and feel to the movie. The score has a constant stream of Caribbean style music music to keep the propusvile beat. Plenty of reggae, soca and dub vibes keep the film light and jaunty even when things get tense. The star of the film though is the subtitles. The locals speak Trinidadian Creole, which is a type of English that non-native speakers would likely not understand at all. It is a style of Patois that has its own words and slang. The subtitles bounce on the screen and do a rough translation on what is happening. It is so people not from Trinidad and Tobago can not only read but also understand what is being said. Sometimes Marcano includes the slang word and definition, but mostly just a translation to get the jist of the dialogue. The highlight is a scene where Rebecca and her mother have a meeting with the elder women of the church community. It is here that Rebecca is banished from the community until after she has given birth. From there you get what a lot of what people who surround themselves with religious folks call “Christian nice” aka, doublespeak. You hear a character say “you have our support”, which the subtitles write out as “we don’t care” or “remember we have a lot of young people to think about”, which is translated as “remember whoring is contagious”.
I would be remiss to not point out one very problematic scene in the film that serves no purpose. We get a flashback of when Skimma and Rebecca hooked up, Skimma offers her a joint and liquor, something she tries to rebuke at first but concedes. After some sweet talking by Skimma they begin to kiss. You think this is their so-called meet cute moment, except later in the film the flashback is shown again, this time with the coda that he passes out, where then Rebecca stands up, grins, takes off his pants and gets on top of him all while he is unconscious and unaware. Make no mistake, this is rape and as we know if the roles were reversed and a grinning man leers over a passed out woman after plying her with substances and has intercourse with her, this movie wouldn’t be screening at SXSW. It is bad enough that some officers joke about how well received skinny Skimma would be if he got sent to the maximum security prison for selling weed, but this mating scene is beyond reproach and needs to be called out.
The film ends not where it began, and sets up the idea that Marcano plans on continuing Skimma’s tale in his next feature as it doesn’t end with a helicopter coming to arrest him, but rather Skimma getting on a boat to leave the country (not on his terms). The colourful pastiche, easy breezy music and fun crime plot makes this movie easy to enjoy. Akil Williams puts in a wonderful turn as a man trying to balance island living with wanting greatness. If only that one very problematic scene didn’t occur, it would be much easier to wholeheartedly recommend this film to everyone.
CHEE$E was seen during the 2022 SXSW Film Festival Thank you to the festival for the press pass.
