Reels & Riddims
Welcome to Reels & Riddims!
Mikelah and Kerry-Ann, two friends and culture enthusiasts, give their eclectic mix of commentary and reviews in world of TV, Film, and Concerts. From dissecting storylines in TV and film that feature Caribbean characters, to the irresistible 'riddims' of the concerts, Reels and Riddims got you covered.
Reels & Riddims
"Home Again": Deportation, Identity & Caribbean Realities – Season 3 Finale
In this season finale we take a deep dive into the 2012 film Home Again, a gripping Caribbean drama that explores what happens when deportees are forced to return to a country they barely know.
Starring Tatyana Ali, Stephan James, and Lyriq Bent, Home Again brings to life the emotional and social challenges faced by those sent back to Jamaica from the U.S., UK, and Canada. We unpack the film’s key themes—like identity, belonging, reintegration, and systemic injustice
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A Breadfruit Media Production
Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Reels and Rhythms brought to you by Carry On Friends in partnership with the Style and Vibes plus the Breakfruit Media, and Reels and Rhythms brings you commentary, reviews and perspectives to what's guanning in the world of TV, film, concerts with no fear, plenteous vibes as only Michaela and I can, and this is all through the lens of Caribbean culture, caribbean American immigrant and first-generation experiences. Michaela, what is guanning?
Speaker 1:Wa guan me people, damn Carrie wa gwan Plenty is gwaning, which is why this is our last episode for this season, because there's so much to watch and we can't catch up to watch everything that we need to watch.
Speaker 2:That means that the people have their own things, you know.
Speaker 1:And I mean just a lot. I mean other than Caribbean films. There's a lot, but there's plenty of other stuff we want to talk about. Michaela still not watched season two of Survival of the Tickets with the good old Caribbean.
Speaker 2:I did start.
Speaker 1:With the good old Caribbean gal, michelle Butoh Butoh and so much more stuff that we wanted to watch. So we're wrapping this season with Home Again, and did you? Essentially, their names are Dunstan.
Speaker 2:Evatan and Marva. So it follows these three young people. They're all in their 20s and they get deported back home to Jamaica, to Kingston, jamaica. It's a fictional story, but I read that it was actually based. So one of the writers her name is Jennifer Holness which she did in collaboration with her husband, suds Sutherland. She actually had a classmate that got deported and was killed due to some kind of activity back home. So it inspired her to create this film and shoot it and so we get this, you know, interesting story that follows these three individuals three perspectives one coming from Canada, one coming from England and one coming from New York. So I thought that that so kind of gives the breadth of the diaspora experience from different cultural experiences and it follows these three individuals and how they connect at the end and their stories and of course it's nothing but trials and tribulations from the start time moving to the end. We both previously we watched it before and then. So we are now rewatching it so that we can talk about it here on Reels and Rhythms.
Speaker 1:Well, I may rewatch it with different lens. Okay, what threw me off again with this one so that we can talk about it here on the rise in terms of Hollywood? So it threw me off. I was like, wait, we never bookmarked this, so I'm visually looking for that.
Speaker 1:As you mentioned, the film is based on the deportee experience, and so for anyone watching this who doesn't know what a deportee is, a deportee is someone who lived in one of the three areas that we spoke about US, canada and the UK and they've been sent back home. And as I started watching it, I thought that it was kind of interesting that we're talking about this in the current climate that we're in, and the opening credits of the movie said between 1996 and 2001, these three countries changed their immigration laws to make it easier for people who commit any form of crime, whether it's a petty crime or anything, to be deported back to their country of origin. And part of why this is happening you think of sustainability and infrastructure on the places that they're sending the deportees back to, you know. So there's so many things like can a small island sustain the volume of people that are coming back to a place where some of them may have left, since they were children, as the case of these three characters, and so they didn't really have a connection or a lot of family back home.
Speaker 1:Two of them did, and we'll get into the precarious situations they got into and so we know that reintegration into a country and culture that you didn't really have a connection with, because you've kind of it's this phantom homeland type situation. You say you're Jamaican, trini wherever, but you haven't really lived there so you really don't know how to navigate life the same way. So that was something that I wanted to make sure that we would call out, but anyway. So what do you think about the movie overall?
Speaker 2:Overall, I thought it was really good. I think I enjoyed it even more. I think the first time I was just like, oh, this is cool. But then this one, I was like, oh I, why didn't I watch this again? Or you know, um, but I, I really did, I did like it. I liked that it had the three perspectives and then I like that all of the characters have some connection to the caribbean all the actors in real life had a connection to the Caribbean.
Speaker 2:So that was well done on the part of the production team and, yeah, I thought that the storyline was exciting. And then I remember the, the brother from Sprinter is the Don in this one and I watched Sprinter after so I was just like, oh, this is really good that they used him and he was actually really good playing his character as the Don because him did brutal. But yeah, what were your initial thoughts?
Speaker 1:All right, so watching it this time around, I felt like I was more critical, and this is just me. I really had a hard time getting past the Trini accents of the girl, of all the characters, trying to be Jamaican accent.
Speaker 2:I think, yes, I did notice that too, but then I also saw that they did the production, the filming the production was mostly in Trinidad so it made sense. But yeah, particularly every time look at yeah, she was straight, it was mostly in Trinidad. Yeah, so it made sense, but yeah, particularly every time look at hot girl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was straight Trini and all of the friends were Trini and all of her friends were Trini. Yeah, the passport man was Trini, like a good chunk of the characters. It's probably better we just call out the Jamaicans, because the actual Jamaicans are a smaller amount than but what they. Even though it was filmed mostly in Trinidad, they did use b-roll.
Speaker 2:that is actually Kinston yes, yeah, because I saw a couple of spots that I recognized. So I think, scenery wise, you wouldn't necessarily know. But then when I looked into the production, I was like, yeah, a lot of these actors, like I think the most important one was probably Everton's girlfriend, where it was really distinct, and the guy doing the passport, um two I think, yeah, those were the two most distinct ones, but because it wasn't so much focused on them, I also liked that they didn't try to have the actors put on an accent, right.
Speaker 1:That's what I liked. My only challenge with the character that was kind of out of place for her accent was Fifi Dobson's character, Cherry.
Speaker 2:Remember, you know in 2012,. Let's come out. You know she didn't give a good, good effort. Yeah, remember, you know at 2012, let's come out. You know she didn't give a good, good effort. Uh, yeah, I think she she get effort. Execution maybe not so much, but is she of Caribbean descent?
Speaker 1:yes, I don't know. I know she's. I know she's um Canadian but I didn't know what is her, her, her, background so well Tatiana Ali, her father's Trini, he's Douglas and her mother is Panamanian Panamanian. Stephan James Jamaican parentage. On both sides. Lyric is the same and one of Fifi's parents is Jamaican. I think her father.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, honestly, I totally forgot she was in it. I didn't even remember her character. I saw her immediately and I recognized her. I was like, oh, that's Fifi Dobson, compared to some of the other things that we have seen and heard, and it's been really, really bad. I think she'd give it that good effort, but it never did exactly Like. There were some instances where it was just like, oh gosh. But then there were some were like, when she wasn't speaking to too much, she was fine, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was you give her a little one word answer.
Speaker 1:There are moments, you also like.
Speaker 2:I think I also don't have visibility to like how they coached her in terms of the accent to you know.
Speaker 1:So and then we also had CCH Pounder who plays Eva N's mother. Eva N, eva N I mean I want to say so much but I don't know where I'm going to give it. It don't matter. Eva N, go in the car and buckle the English phone and the man said 30 pound. I'm like my gosh. So it's just glaring that he didn't really. I mean, first of all a mother sent him to Jamaica to go to Uncle Sammy house and squatter Teku over Uncle Sammy house, then capture Uncle Sammy house and then Teku in luggage. I mean, I mean I think they did a decent job of showing various scenarios in where people could land. I mean, there's the typical them get back into badness, which is kind of what Dunstan was doing. But in the case of Evan, I think that was the hardest because he was really there by himself and found himself homeless yeah because not even his mother.
Speaker 1:you know he I mean the mother thought that she was sending him back to some uncle and nobody the uncle, nobody was at the uncle house and so kind of seeing him become homeless, get addicted to drugs was, I think, the hardest thing to see. Tatiana Ali's character. You can't get a sense of that. You can't see how that happened. Paul Campbell, how could we not recognize that Paul Campbell was in this role? I'm going to tell you, is it the one Paul Campbell? I'm going to tell you the type of roles he played. You can't say okay, they'll come and threaten. All of these roles, except for Lunatic, is some villainous character, but the variety of villain, we have to give it up to him on him playing this role. So that was interesting and you know, like all the different scenarios that you can find was happening in the movie. I don't want to give it away because I really want people to go and support the thing. You could watch it on Amazon via All Black or whatever.
Speaker 1:But you know the level of violence which is kind of and I think this is what the film was trying to do the minute you're labeled a deportee, you're automatically considered a violent offender because typically you're deported for some criminal activity. You know, in an Everton case he might be a friend and was in catching with marijuana on him and that was what happened to him. And so the difficulty in really trying to reintegrate into the society there by getting a job. Nobody wants to give them a job and you know, because it's like when you're applying for jobs here they say that you shouldn't be discriminated based on your past. You know incarceration right, but it still happens right. And so because you know, in the case of Marva, who's played by Tatiana Ali, who is really trying to get a job but is finding it difficult and then being sometimes being blackmailed because of their status as a deportee, yeah, I'm glad in that scenario that she kind of held her own.
Speaker 2:She's like uh-uh, it was that transition of figuring it out. She kind of had to flex a little bit of what she knew she could bring to the table so that she could keep her job and she at that point very desperate to really reconnect with her children. I think that that was probably one of the heartbreaking parts of her story. And then Everton's story. It was heartbreaking because he was just so clueless, like you could tell he he had been to Jamaica but that clearly was not his home because and so this he got into the cab one. The other scenario was the hotel he checked into a hundred dollar a night hotel and ordered a room service. So he clearly didn't have a clue that he was going to be here this long. This was practically going to become his new home.
Speaker 2:And even when he had a little bit of good news for his mom about getting a job, he was like crushed by the idea that he won't, he won't be able to come back to where he grew up in England. So I think that that probably was. It was an interesting kind of experience to kind of observe, especially in comparison to Dunstan. Dunstan is a bad man in New York and he reached out Kingston and continued with it. Well, you can tell that there's a part of him that doesn't want to get caught up, because he really does want to go back to New York, even if it's illegally.
Speaker 1:Michaela Menatry get pinched on here, even if it's illegally.
Speaker 2:Mikaela may not try to get pinched down here. Yeah, may not try, but he has no other skills so he has to work and his cousin had gotten dipped multiple times.
Speaker 1:The man said he's like no, ma'am, I'm not scared. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The man said it's because you and your frequent flyer miles Me get dipped and then me go back again and me get I'm going to get deep and then I'm going to go back again and I'm going to get deep again.
Speaker 2:He said three times, as the charming lady said. She said, no, ma I'm there for good now. Whereas he was able to kind of settle into his new life, he's like well, I'm not going to keep getting deep, I'm just going to do my thing. Yes, sir, whereas Dunstan hadn't come to that until he met Mwanse Fifi, but come to that until he met um moa sefifi, but her name in the in the cherry cherry, cherry c, cherry c um. Till they meet, they love. I'm like cherry um, and what time I am cherry, oh cherry, oh cherry. They should have had that in there yeah.
Speaker 2:What else? Yeah. So I think having the three storylines and having them kind of connect, and even the connection between Marva and Dunstan, like their mothers knew each other, even though they were living she was living in Canada and he was living in New York they still remembered you know each other and as soon as they saw each other it was like family. You know what I mean. And so there was this sense of connection that they were able to kind of bring together and poor, poor Everton Never have this same look.
Speaker 1:I think for me Everton was so close because as he was driving out, his mom was driving in in the taxi and of course you know what ended up happening to him. So you know it was it balanced it it wasn't. It wasn't like, oh there is a happy ending and everything. There isn't, and I like that. It kind of showed the life of other deportees. It was tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because there were a few in the mix. So the guy that got killed with Dunstan, with Dunstan Afimita, there was Jamix. Yes yes, yes, yes there was the guy with the picnic. The guy with the picnic, with Evatan yeah, at one point, miss Ayemina, is that really his kidney?
Speaker 1:The guy with the pitney, with Everton, yeah, At one point me say hear me now, is that really his kid, or am I walking with one pitney for get food?
Speaker 2:At that minute I think about it and then when I, when I saw him leave the pitney with Everton, he just leave him gone and now come back for the pit.
Speaker 1:It felt like I'm like wait, are they using this child as a prop to get you know stuff? But yeah, it was interesting Then when the man asleep.
Speaker 2:the man just take off him shoes. And then I look at the man's shoes I'm like, but pink shoes are really better than fair shoes. But you take the man's shoes while he's asleep and then take him look at bag, wear him look at things at night. I'm like yo, the people them dangerous man. Yeah, the people them they deal with Everton wicked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they smelled the vulnerability on Everton. They could see it, they can tell, and so that's why, from the minute he landed, he was, you know, in a very precarious position.
Speaker 2:Did you notice that the squatters that were in Everton's uncle house and them never find the uncle?
Speaker 1:They were wearing bad man in at the dance.
Speaker 2:They were trenched on bad man.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, Bad man them in at the dance here. Let me see.
Speaker 2:They kept watching him.
Speaker 1:I'm like mm-mm.
Speaker 2:I thought they were going to see Everton and recognize him. Oh man, and then the poor girl.
Speaker 1:Her mother, her mother came. And beat him up, I mean.
Speaker 2:She did too fast. She hear him UK accent and start getting excited.
Speaker 1:That part was just like I was just like wait, so oh, she just gone with Manso. Let me not understand.
Speaker 2:I think that's the fastest thing he learned.
Speaker 1:The fastest thing he learned was oh girl type thing, but you know.
Speaker 2:In a way it kind of distracted him from his situation. But at the same time it distracted him from the gravity of his situation. Like he thought he was comfortable right Because he was with someone who was native to the island. He made a friend and you know, she seemingly was into him, but he got comfortable way too quickly and it really cost him.
Speaker 1:It sure did, and I think when she got out the picture was when he faced life the hardest. But he had to get through that in order to come out on the other side of all. Right, I need help, type thing. His storyline was the toughest one, for sure.
Speaker 2:And then poor Mava lose the goat, then the ram goat. Um, poor mother lose the goat, then the ram go. She didn't lose the goat, me, no, I said she never lose the goat. The man, the man, the man cut the goat loose and I set her up. Paul campbell did a great job but ended wicked still enough ended wicked and then so was that her blood uncle, or was it the mom?
Speaker 1:I don't know, the mom said I didn't raise you. Yeah, I didn't raise you. Yeah, so it's okay, like what? And then the woman I can't help you.
Speaker 2:I can't build a place for you. You think someone will come live here with you.
Speaker 1:No, and then his daughter and you, but just those things just I.
Speaker 2:I didn't understand who was her real blood I think it was.
Speaker 1:I think it was the uncle.
Speaker 2:It was the uncle, that's what I kind of I kind of gathered and then the way that the daughter I didn't really understand until I looked saw the way the daughter looked at her when she was leaving and she didn't really understand until I saw the way the daughter looked at her when she was leaving and she didn't really say anything to her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the daughter pick up, says the father or something. But that also tells me that if you're able to suspect something, the uncle has done something before Before.
Speaker 2:But both the mom and the mom, his wife and the daughter, picked up on it, yeah, and they're blaming her instead of blaming him, him yeah, well, he's the provider, he's the provider. Yeah, yeah, so I guess that's the only person that they can take it out on.
Speaker 1:All right, so watch Home Again, let us know your thoughts, but before we go, because this is also a season wrap up. So what is your rating for the Huxen Two? Yep, that's my rating 2.22. All right For character. I gave it a three. What say you?
Speaker 2:Character, I would give it a four.
Speaker 1:Storyline. I gave it a 3.5. What does you say? Three Point five, what does?
Speaker 2:you say Three. See, now I'm like the score for me for those could like it could be three for character development and four for storyline.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I can't give you both, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:That's why I gave the storyline gets a higher score for me. Could the characters be developed a little bit more? Yes, but like this is the short end, like boom boom. This is a storyline, the complexities within it. I gave music 2.5. I did recognize the Barrington Levy and some other song. After that I'm like I don't remember nothing about the music and maybe maybe for when them under the dancehall queen competition but I thought that that segment alone was so weak.
Speaker 2:I'd give it a one yeah, like that should have been the opportunity to incorporate it a bit more, because the dancing was offbeat to whatever the dress that we were dancing to was.
Speaker 1:It didn't feel as it didn't feel authentic. Yeah, yeah, so I I gave yeah the opening. There were some scenes where in the opening, but, like you said, that dancehall scene was an opportunity to have the better music yeah and then for visual on authenticity. I just gave it uh two I got three.
Speaker 2:Yes, good three, but I mean they got the essence of of. They were very distinct about even the like. I noticed the airport scene wasn't. It wasn't jamaica, but the way that they shot it you could think.
Speaker 1:you could think it was Jamaica Right.
Speaker 2:You know, like the B-roll really helped it. The treatment of the actual film itself, like whatever filter that they used, was kind of gave it that vibrancy, yeah, that vibrancy, yeah. And then like even the house going up in the hills, you know, like they, they. While it wasn't Jamaica, you wouldn't. It wasn't necessarily noticeable until you read that the production was done in Trinidad, I think they chose deliberate places where it's ambiguous and it could be anywhere again.
Speaker 1:As a Jamaican, I noticed it so when it opened up the signs on the street, I'm like this on all Jamaican signs that would be on a street. So you know, yeah, yeah, um overall. So let's see what it gets. Yo, this is probably the lowest score it gets. It gets a 2.6.
Speaker 2:It's almost like a three yeah, bump it up to a three all right, I'll give visual authenticity a 2.5.
Speaker 1:It's, it's still like 2.65, but yeah, I, because you give music one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, let me get that too. I get that too.
Speaker 1:There's no coming back from that. Yeah, yeah, it closer to the tree, but yeah, I think I do still think it's a important watch, given where we are understanding socially what happens to people who are deported. And these are people who had a criminal history, no matter how minor it is. Imagine people from the Windrush generation who were sent back, who didn't have necessarily criminal activity, but they just said, yeah, you know, have no official proof that you are supposed to be here, so it just shows, regardless the label or branded as a deportee, what what that means to these people when they go back um to the, to Jamaica specifically, because this is about Jamaica. I'm not sure what happens to other Caribbean countries. So, yeah, yeah, all right, and with that we're wrapping our season. And, mikayla, what did you think of season three?
Speaker 2:Because of season three, you know people just on our style of reviewing the things and I think people really liked that. We went back and watched older things like Home Again, because they may have missed it and even though the films were done a while ago they are still relevant and should be watched by us. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, reruns are a thing. If we watch reruns of every other movie, sitcom, genre, we should be also re-watching our own stuff, and I think that's important. I did enjoy the season. We did get a lot of feedback from the audience. We have some requests to watch and review certain projects. So we're taking the next couple months off until the next season to try to catch up and watch some of these. I did try to watch A Thousand Blows and I got past maybe one or two episodes, but I couldn't Guess who went in A Thousand Blows Laurent from Champion, yes, and then the other guy who was in Small Axe. So I'm telling you, the Brits, the British, jamaicanish, jamaican, them are all then just yes I like it still.
Speaker 2:I like it still yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know we appreciate you for tuning in watching engaging um. Please let us know in the comments if there's any, what movie or project, whether it's a series, you want us to watch and review for next season. We are opening that up to you all. We've already gotten some suggestions. Babylon is one that we've gotten. So, in the comment, just send on your commentaries or your suggestions, rather, and let us know. We've really enjoyed this. We're looking forward to catching up on watching stuff, telling you what we've been watching over the summer and whatever new projects that are coming up. So thank you for rocking with the reels to the rhythms. Maybe, michaela, we tell you about our concert goings, because she's not stopped the road.
Speaker 2:Maybe, maybe, maybe A bonus episode, because summertime, yeah, it's that season, don't you not see? Me do it.
Speaker 1:Listen, no oh.
Speaker 2:God, my pockets can't deal with it again, you know.
Speaker 1:Everybody get back them visas. So you already know pure things are going this summer yeah, it's good for the artists, but yeah, not I and I pockets. But on that note, big up enough respect and thank you for tuning in to Reels and Riddings, not till next time. Bye, later, later for tuning in to Reels and Riddings, not till next time Later Later.
