Review of The Last Black Man in San Francisco by Joe Talbot

I remember the first time I saw this movie, I didn’t watch all of it. I’d been in a friend no longer a friend’s apartment, and she was playing this movie on the television set in front of her couch.

It was a tiny cramped apartment in Central Harlem, New York City, and that meant we were pushed up on the couch and the screen wasn’t really distanced away from us, so it was uncomfortable.

That meant I wasn’t really watching the movie to be honest, and when she asked me at the end, I shrugged and said I didn’t care for it. But if you had asked me after the fact, I didn’t remember anything about the movie.

That said, when this was added onto Netflix, I ended up returning to it. I didn’t let that experience cloud my judgement, and with the newfound free time I had after completing my internship at the Smithsonian, I saw down with the blankets curled around me and just watched this movie. And man, I had such different feelings than I did back in the day.

Here’s my review.

One San Francisco man fights for the house he says his grandfather built.

The main protagonist of this movie is Jimmie, who lives in SF and spends his days wandering the town. He lives with his best friend Mont, and Mont’s grandfather, but as they move through the city, they see the drastic changes happening.

People are protesting because of the gentrification of San Francisco, and the fact it is increasingly becoming unlivable. One day, they take their skateboards to the side of town Jimmie grew up in, and they stop in front of one Victorian home.

Jimmie tells Mont, and, by extension, us that his grandfather built the home in 1946, as he wanted to build a new home rather than take one of the ones that Japanese Americans were forced to leave behind.

Two old white people live in the home now, but Jimmie thinks that they don’t take care of the house. He shows up to fix the shudders, paint, garden, but it pisses them off because Jimmie is just a random man making improvements on their home.

One day, they see the woman crying, and that there’s a dispute over the home, as the woman’s mother died. Jimmie and Mont find the realtor, Clayton, and ask about the home. He had no idea what happened, but informs them that this is an estate problem, and the house might stay empty for some years.

This convinces the two men to set up camp there, and they get furniture from Jimmie’s aunt’s house. They move into the abandoned home.

Mont goes to visit their friend Kofi, but Kofi gets aggressive towards Jimmie the next day when it comes to his father, saying some things he really should not have. Kofi is then killed not long after that. Jimmie and Mont go home to find their belongings on the street, and discover that the realtor has put a “For Sale” sign up on the property.

Jimmie puts everything back inside, tries to buy the home while at the bank, and Mont visits the realtor. The realtor then tells him the home was built in the 1850s, as seen on the deed, and Jimmie’s grandfather had nothing to do with it.

Mont is struggling with Kofi’s death, and writes a play. Jimmie stages a performance, but his father shows up that day. Mont brings up Kofi in the play, and asks the audience what they really thought of him.

He then asks Jimmie, he recalls how awful Kofi was to him their final time together, and then Mont goes off on Jimmie. He says that the home isn’t really built by his grandfather, and Jimmie, with the rest of the audience, leaves.

Mont and Jimmie meet at the dock, and he admits he knew the home wasn’t his grandfather’s.

The next morning, Mont wakes up and discovers Jimmie left and isn’t coming back. Mont tries to do all the same things they did together, but finds they aren’t as fun without his best buddy. Jimmie is then seen rowing in a boat past the Golden Gate Bridge.

Overall Thoughts

What a gorgeous, poetic movie. Maybe it was time that led me to appreciate this one more, but I could see how Jimmie was so deeply attached to the home he grew up in that he ended up creating an entire narrative to try and still claim it as his own.

Set in a San Francisco being impacted by gentrification and completely changing from the one he grew up in, one pivotal moment is when his aunt tells him that if he leaves, it’s the city’s loss, not his.

Such a striking scene that is, and it shows how the themes manifest in more subtle ways. Go watch it if you haven’t already.

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