The first trailer for The Kitchen has landed online, and it looks like an unsettling Top Boy meets Blade Runner-esque Netflix movie with plenty to say thematically.
Co-written by Daniel Kaluuya (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Nope), Rob Hayes, and Joe Murtagh, one of Netflix’s early 2024 film offerings paints a creative but believably chilling picture of a near-future dystopian London where the divide between rich and poor has grown ever larger. Expectedly, that sets the stage for urban-style class warfare and the uncomfortable sociopolitical issues it creates.
Kaluuya, who is one of the brightest creative minds to emerge from the UK capital in recent years, co-directed The Kitchen alongside Kibwe Tavares (Time Machine, Robots of Brixton). The duo made their filmmaking debuts with the Netflix Original, too, and the flick – one feature film a decade in the making – has already received glowing reviews ahead of its Netflix release.
Following its world premiere at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival, The Kitchen is sitting on an 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes – albeit from just 18 reviews – which suggests it’ll make for an emotionally-charged, neofuturistic movie when it arrives on the world’s best streaming service.
For anyone looking for more information on its plot, here are some specifics, courtesy of a Netflix press blast: “Set in a dystopian London (but one within reach, around 20 years down the track), the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits. All forms of social housing have been eradicated and only ‘The Kitchen’ remains – a community that refuses to move out of the place they call home.
“This is where we meet a solitary Izi, living in The Kitchen by necessity and desperately trying to find a way out, and a 12-year-old Benji, who has lost his mother and is searching for a family. We follow our unlikely pair as they struggle to forge a relationship in a system that is stacked against them.”
Kane Robinson (otherwise known by his rapper handle Kano), who portrayed fan-favorite Top Boy character Sully during its five-season run, stars as Izi. Newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman will also play Benji in a story positioned, in Netflix’s eyes, as “a film about community, inequality, family, class, joy, resilience, courage, defiance, and care in London – and communities around the globe”.
Kaluuya is joined by fellow esteemed actor Michael Fassbender among the film’s executive team, while acclaimed British rapper/music producer Labrinth created the flick’s original score alongside Alex Baranowski (Staged, Rain Dogs) for one of early 2024’s most anticipated new Netflix movies.
Will The Kitchen be an early frontrunner for inclusion in our best Netflix movies guide? It certainly seems like it’ll make a case for itself very soon, with The Kitchen set to launch exclusively on Netflix on January 19, 2024. It’s also getting a limited theatrical run in select UK theaters from January 12.
