It’s hard to make more astute observations about the work of writer/director Sean Baker than the ones that have been made in piece after piece about his last film, Take Out. But, with the coming of his next work, I’m going to try. His latest, Prince of Broadway, is the simple story of a self-proclaimed Ghanaian hustler whose life is turned upside down when his ex-girlfriend Linda stiffs him with their baby to raise. But in the hands of an intelligent and witty filmmaker like Baker, Prince of Broadway is anything but simple.
In many ways, Prince of Broadway belongs to a camp of movies that is rapidly writing its own history. Alongside films like Gavin Hood’s Tsotsi, Jan Sverák’s Kolya and The Dardenne Brothers’ L’Enfant, it tells the story of an inept, misguided older man forced to take care of a baby. Together, both man and child mature through their relationship with each other, often resulting in both hilarity and tragedy. But what sets Baker’s film apart is the shockingly honest humanity he portrays along the way. There’s no glamour to his characters’ lives, no cutesy moments where they learn universal truths, no glitzy art direction that idealizes their world, no nail-biting chases where the child is used as a prop for monetary gain. No, Baker’s film exists in the real world, where undeveloped “children” are often forced to raise children of their own through the unglamorous day-to-day grind.
I still haven’t seen Take Out, but from everything I’ve read, Prince of Broadway seems like a logical next step. The aforementioned humanity allows Baker to discuss things like illegal immigration through the course of a pre-established cinematic construct, in this case the one of an immature man who must deal with a child that has been thrust upon him. It’s as if he is building off the shoulders of Hood, Sverák and The Dardennes to make something much more poignant and timely by using the themes he’s already prepared in his previous work. Much like Michael Haneke does in Cache, Baker matures as a filmmaker by employing greater subtlety to his work, letting what he wants to say come out of the subtext of the story as opposed to ever directly mentioning it.
Stylistically, the beautiful digital video look adds to the simplicity of the piece, allowing the drama of the characters’ lives to speak for itself and ride its own natural arch. Many of the scenes are played for a surprising and often comedic effect. Characters will take a dramatic shift in tone (in one standout scene, a couple’s argument quickly turns from seemingly playful to nasty). Even the way Lucky first receives Prince seems like a comedy of errors as Linda asks Lucky to hold him for a second and then takes off out the door. It’s as if Baker could find the drama of a wall being painted and make it kinetic, unexpected and cinematically original with a pixel-vision camera.
I would be remiss if I finished without mentioning the fantastic performance by Prince Adu. Never has a street hustler been more charismatically self-serving. Like Bruno Ganz’s Hitler or James Gadolfini’s Tony Soprano, Adu’s performance will go down in the books as one of those astonishing pieces of acting that makes a man out of a monster. This time around, Baker is not only showing off his first rate directing skills; he’s showcasing Adu alongside him.
— Michael Lerman
(Prince of Broadway just won the Target Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival, which carries with it a $50,000 cash prize. Visit the film’s official website for upcoming screenings and distribution news, but for now, watch the trailer here.)
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Comments (7) RSS Feed for comments on this post. Trackback URI
[...] hopeful, and invigorating spin on a traditional Hollywood formula. Read Michael Lerman’s review on this very site following the film’s big win at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June. I [...]
Comment by / HAMMER TO NAIL » Blog Archive » Woodstock Film Festival 2008 Wrap-Up - October 6th, 2008 at 6:12 am
[...] Reichardt) 5. The Pleasure of Being Robbed (Joshua Safdie) 6. Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols) 7. Prince of Broadway (Sean Baker) 8. Take Out (Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou) 9. The Pool (Chris Smith) 10. [...]
Comment by / HAMMER TO NAIL » Blog Archive » “The 2008 Hammer to Nail Awards” - January 16th, 2009 at 8:50 am
[...] Prince of Broadway and Baker’s previous feature, Take Out (co-directed with Shih-Ching Tsou), are competing for the same trophy at the Spirits: the John Cassavetes Award for best feature budgeted at under $500,000. Take a zero off that number and that’s around what both films cost to make. But though they were lower-than-low-budget productions, they also happen to be two of the finest American social realist pictures of recent memory. Before that, Baker made another feature, Four Letter Words, which found the writer/director probing more personally familiar terrain: a keg-fueled night-in-the-life of a group of friends in suburban New Jersey. He is also a co-creator and creative force behind the cult series Greg the Bunny. But it wasn’t until 2008’s one-two punch of Take Out and Prince of Broadway that Baker had finally arrived (read the Hammer to Nail reviews here and here). [...]
Comment by / HAMMER TO NAIL » Blog Archive » A Conversation With Sean Baker - February 18th, 2009 at 9:26 am
I had the opportunity to catch this at the New York African Film Festival in December. It was either a screening of The Wrestler of take a chance on this, which had no one famous in it but i had read lots of great buzz. I figured The Wrestler was opening in a week so i could always see that and i decided to take a chance and see something i did not have knowledge of - and how did it turn out?….well, every so often you take a chance in life and it pays off - this was one of the rare independent productions that delivered. The film starts strong and only builds from there. The performances are all top notch and worthy of the long careers they will all have ahead of them.
After the film, the director and producer and cast got up in front of the audience. they were all charming and answered the many questions asked of them. i learned a lot. i wanted to stand up and ask a question but was a little shy. I just want to know what these filmmakers have up their sleeves next because i will be there opening day.
If i could say one thing to them i would tell them this movie renewed my faith in indendent films without the backing of major studios.
bravo!
- Albert
Comment by tempytemp - February 20th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
oh yeah - PS - - The Wrestler turned out to be not so great as they said anyway - so i REALLY made the right choice that night in early December!!!! LOL. Rourke was good. But Tomai - No WAY deserves a nomination!! Terrible.
Comment by tempytemp - February 20th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
This movie needs to be seen! I saw it at the LA Film Festival…and wasn’t at all surprised when it won! It’s a shame that it isn’t already in movie theaters, but if distributors could share this movie with the rest of the world, I know the world would respond passionately. A beautiful film.
Comment by flipper2 - February 20th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
[...] Prince of Broadway (Sean Baker) [...]
Comment by / HAMMER TO NAIL » Blog Archive » NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU - Artificial City - October 16th, 2009 at 10:35 am