Change Your Image
ninokadic
Reviews
Homeless Ashes (2019)
Powerful and Transformative
This is a film that needed to be made. The acting is extremely good, especially from Marc Zammit, who excelled as Frankie, Jamey May, who gave us a touching and self-aware portrayal of Nicole, and Ritchi Edwards, who gave us one of the most touching moments of the film as Al.
This is an honest film that does not romanticise or diminish the reality of being homeless. The plot is deep and complex, as well as very dynamic, featuring both subtle and direct twists. Some of my favourite moments of the film illustrate this quite well.
For example, the moment when Frankie meets a woman dancing on the street, who is first afraid of him but changes her attitude once she sees how apprehensive Frankie becomes when he notices that he scares her. The scene when they dance together is one of the few lighter, less gritty moments of the movie. It is also one of the most human. That lightness is quickly negated shortly thereafter.
Another such moment features Al, a homeless, disabled veteran who is attacked by a drunk man who is not homeless. That man offers Al a drink, but he refuses. That is a rather direct subversion of the viewer's expectations, but there is a more subtle one as well. When the drunk man attacked Al, I expected him to snap and fight back (rightfully so!), but that does not happen. Al gets beaten up and is helpless until Frankie steps in to help him. The homeless veteran is thus portrayed as a man with a quiet kind of dignity, but also as someone who can be weak and afraid, like the rest of us.
The final moment, when Frankie meets his mum, is where the film could have ended and I would have been completely fine with it. When she ponders about what he went through during his 11 years of being homeless, the shaky "it doesn't matter" uttered by Frankie, through tears, is soul-crushing.
Overall, I loved this film. I warmly recommend it to everyone and I am so glad that it sets a precedent for the future. We need more films that unapologetically tackle serious issues - art that is a true mirror of our world.