DVD Review: 'Home Again', Starring Tatyana Ali and Lyriq Bent

Making a film that's based on something that affects a lot of people every year immediately puts the pressure on the filmmaker. Home Again isn't based on a true story, but it is based on true facts, and trying to bring an efficiently told and emotional story is hard enough without adding in certain facts to back your film. Unfortunately, Sudz Sutherland's film ultimately fails in giving us a well-rounded and emotionally backed character story, but does a good job in introducing a topic that hasn't been given a lot of attention.

The film focuses on three characters. Marva Johnson (Tatyana Ali), Dunston Williams (Lyriq Bent), and Everton St. James (Stephan James). All three have two things in common. 1) They all were born in Jamaica before their parents moved out of the country and 2) they've all been deported back to Jamaica after committing some crime or other (not the bloody, "I just killed someone" type of crimes though). 

Marva, going through a bout of depression and allowing herself to go through the motions, is caught at the Toronto airport with drug possession. The drugs aren't hers, but her boyfriend's, but she gets caught in the crossfire and is deported and forced to leave her two children behind in Canada until she can find a decent job in order to support them. 

Dunston lived in New York City for most of his life and finds himself working for the Don of the neighborhood (Kadeem Wilson) and falling for a cook named Cherry C. (Fefe Dobson), all while trying to stay out of trouble and trying to get back Stateside. Everton is deported from England and is probably the person who has the hardest time adjusting to life in Jamaica as he's eventually left homeless and hungry. 

Sutherland tries to go for heart wrenching and emotional, but the film winds up being flat. The point of views are too split and Sutherland tries to do too much with a film that lacks any real character focus. The actors do well enough with what they're given, however the characters themselves are nowhere near three-dimensional enough to garner a lot of sympathy for their plight besides some minuscule sadness.   

Tatyana Ali's performance is partially what keeps the film going. Her struggle to be with her kids and the indirect way she found herself involved in a crime is something that the audience can deeply sympathize with. Her performance is genuine and true to her character's situation. 

Lyriq Bent and Stephan James also give good performances, though they're not given much emotional range when it comes to their characters' situations. Bent's character is ultimately the more well-rounded one, while James's Everton is the most one-dimensional of the three. 

From the very beginning, it's clear that Sutherland will eventually have these characters cross paths in one way or another, but the way it happens isn't fluid. A lot of the film flip flops between an attempt at good storytelling and scenes which fall flat and do nothing for the movie as a whole. The shift between one character's life to the other is shaky and detracts from previous scenes, causing the audience to pull away from the character they are getting to know better and are forced to focus on the next one too quickly. 

The topic of deportation, immigration law, and acclimating to a country you never called home is extremely intriguing given the right source material, but Home Again struggles with the issue and never really finds solid ground. It does, however, give a great portrait of the Jamaica people tend to ignore and not the resort and beach-filled vacation spot most perceive. More character focus and fluidity between each overlapping story is needed in order to garner the emotions Sutherland wants the audience to feel about the topic and situations. A decent, but one dimensional attempt on an otherwise intriguing topic.