24FPS @ BFI Flare 2021: The Obituary of Tunde Johnson

Dir: Ali Le Roi

The time loop narrative has been in vogue lately, with the two Happy Death Day films, coming of agers like Before I Fall and The Map of Tiny Pretty Things and rom-com Palm Springs (still unreleased in the UK), but The Obituary of Tunde Johnson uses the conceit to a much more sober and serious end than I’ve seen before.

Tunde (Steven Silver) is an 18-year-old high school senior from a wealthy, Nigerian-American family. He’s in a secret relationship with Soren (Spencer Neville), a jock who is also the boyfriend to Tunde’s best friend Marley (Nicola Peltz). On this day, he tells his parents he is gay and, at the end of each day, he is killed by the police only to wake, gasping for breath, in his bed.

There are two threads at work in The Obituary of Tunde Johnson; one personal, the other societal. The early part of the film is more focused on the wider issue of how black people, especially young black men, are seen and treated in the US. The steady flow of stories about black men killed by cops can, I would imagine, feel like a time loop; a reiteration of different but similar circumstances leading to the same tragic result day after day. Here, writer/director Ali Le Roi simply reduces that to an actual loop. Each day, with each iteration, Tunde makes changes to his circumstances, he avoids the incident in which he gets pulled over, he responds differently when challenged, but even when he heeds his father’s counsel that “Your life is more important than your pride… You stay silent, and you comply” the result is the same. It’s a confrontational message, powerfully delivered. Because we’ve seen time loop movies before, we want to see Tunde figure out the magic formula to survive the day, but the deep sadness of this strand of the film is that it’s message is that this is the reality; that a lot of black people in the US have to figure out that formula each day.

The other throughline is the relationship between Tunde and Soren. Tunde is clearly all in, and at times this feels mutual. The chemistry is there but so, for both of them, is the fear. Of course, that fear dissipates for Tunde as the days loop, because he knows that when he tells his parents it will be fine. The portrayal of the way that Soren hides his relationship with Tunde, staying with Marley as a cover seemingly for fear of losing his jock friends and the love of his father (a broadcaster on a Fox News type political show) rings true, sometimes in ways that are almost painful to watch. This is never more true than in a heartbreaking key moment when Soren is obviously desperate to say something and the words simply can’t claw their way out. The combination of all this with the two sensitive and detailed performances at the film’s heart adds up to a storyline that ends up powerfully putting across why Tunde says that, as a black man and a gay man “In the eyes of humanity, I’m two degrees off human”. 

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson is definitely a film driven by message (much to the consternation of some imdb commenters, giving it 1/10 and decrying its ’wokery’, expect more of that idiocy as it is more widely seen). That said, it advances that message, if not subtly, then often poetically. The dialogue is beautifully written, from Tunde’s repeated obituaries for himself to other lines that simply stick for how well crafted they are (“When you die you become a scar”). Tunde’s loop never feels like Groundhog Day; the universe giving him a chance to get everything he wants, it’s sadder and more realistic about the US than that, perhaps it’s just a chance to survive this day, and that maybe being enough.

★★★★