Director Ekwa Msangi extends equal sympathy to all the characters in this drama about a family reuniting in New York after many years apart
Tanzanian-American writer-director Ekwa Msangi makes her feature debut with this warmly humane film after an apprenticeship in shorts, and it’s an auspicious start to a career that’s likely to accelerate fast. Judiciously balancing narrational tricksiness with an accessible emotional register, Msangi tells the story of a family of three reunited after a 17-year absence. Husband Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) met his wife Esther (Zainab Jah) when they were both firebrand students back in Angola. But the civil war in their homeland and economic necessity pulled them apart not long after the birth of their daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson, a mesmerising presence); Walter headed to Brooklyn, where he spent the years driving a taxi, while Esther took Sylvia to Tanzania for safety, where as a single parent she found support within the local church. Now that they’ve finally managed to reassemble the atoms of this nuclear family in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in New York, elation gives way to awkwardness as they adjust to each other’s orbits.