My thoughts on... Rocks Film

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(5/5) 

This last week I saw on Instagram that Emma Mackey (her Instagram here) -Maeve Wiley in Sex Education)- posted about Rocks, a new independent British film released on NetflixUK. (I was able to see it from Spain because my phone number is still an English one so if I turn off my wifi, the Netlix app thinks I'm in the UK, allowing me to see everything that there is on NetflixUK 😎)

Rocks film is defined as a coming-of-age drama film. It focuses on friendship among  femail teenagers, girlhood and the hardships of being from an immigrant non privileged working class family. 

Our heroine is Rocks, a Nigerian British girl that lives with her mum and her little brother Emmanuel in East London. Rocks is the nickname she was given after she defended her bestfriend in front of her bullies. It is settled in East London, a tough and poor part of London where a big number of immigrants live.  

The film shows us aproximately a week in Rocks life, just after her mum abandones her and her brother with just an envelope with some money so they can buy food and pay for bills for a few days. But things don't go well. And this is how we are told the strugles of a teenage girl trying to survive with her brothers in a world that is tough on people like her. At the same time we meet her friends and their diverse cultures, teenagers being teenagers, their school life and how they manage to fit in a society being young, from an immigrant family and from a non privileged community. 

I enjoyed seeing real life stories on the screen, lead by real Londoners, real femail caracters, their real life struggles and, eventually, their victories, teaching them, and us, that together we are stronger. 

I hope it gets the audience it deserves and that soon we can watch it on Netflix Spain and around the world as well. (I think that right now it can be watched only on Netflix UK and Netflix France). 

"The most authentic film about British teens in years"
The Independent

"It’s a social-realist adventure written by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson and directed by Sarah Gavron about a multi-ethnic community in East London - in the spirit of Ken Loach’s Kes or Céline Sciamma’s Bande Des Filles. It’s tough, but it’s the opposite of miserablist."
The Guardian

"Theresa Ikoko (writer) created an authentic story around the struggles of being a working class female teenager in London. She created a London that was true to the one I grew up in."
BlackBritishFreedom

The characters of Rocks watching the City of London (where all the bussiness happens) from a rooftop in East London 

 

Don't miss the trailer here!! 

7.6/10 on IMDb- Rocks (2019)

 Official Rocks.film webpage