The near-future is bleak for the working class of London in “The Kitchen,” a well-executed film about a familiar kind of urban dystopian nightmare. It is, ironically, sunnier than the Los Angeles of “Blade Runner,” but the mood is as dire.
In this world, the have-nots are crammed together in hellish Brutalist high-rises, a slum-like development that its residents call “The Kitchen.” With frequent police raids and constant monitoring, there is the whiff of rebellion in the air. But at least for the purposes of this story, tensions have not yet boiled over into a proper revolution — the rage is manifested in smaller, petty crimes, like a smash-and-grab jewelry raid.
Our protagonist Izy (rapper Kane Robinson) has a stable job, selling “eco” and “humane” burial plans to the desperate, grieving poor. Everything is whitewashed and slick and just a little sinister there — it’s called “life after life” after all. He and his colleagues wear clinical scrubs as they sell people on the idea of turning their deceased loved ones into plants.
He also has a plan: To get out. He’s saved enough money to escape The Kitchen and has finally broken through the logjam of a waitlist to get into one of the luxury apartment buildings in town. A single occupancy for a single guy. Naturally the film won’t let him go that easy, but the complication isn’t just financial: A kid enters the picture.
