Florid ★★★

The voices are always there. From the first scene they follow Jamal (Jonathan Jules) around, whispering in his and the audience’s ears. That it’s all his fault, he is a loser, a liar, a sinner, a saint, chosen to protect Kayla (Saskia Chana) who just moved into the room next door. Jamal wants to invite her over for dinner, cook his favourite dish his mother used to make. But even routine tasks like going to the market for the ingredients and setting the table become a challenge with all the hissing and shouting in his mind. The cinema hall becomes an echo chamber of the acoustic hallucinations haunting the young protagonist of Billy Lumby‘s intense feature film debut.

Premiering in San Sebastián’s New Directors slate reserved for first and sophomore films, the intimate portrait of a mentally struggling rapper in his early twenties is a hidden highlight of the Basque film festival. It immerses itself in the world of neurodivergent people with a heartfelt sensitivity and sympathy that feel all the more rare for their determined defiance of sensationalist schizophrenia stereotypes. For more than a century, the psychological condition has been demonized and distorted on screen into something grotesque, malevolent, and massively dangerous at worst, and neurotic spleen at best. All it takes is a handful of pills, doctor’s orders, and a bit of ergo-therapy for patients to get over it. The reality is not as simple.

Director-writer Lumby is resolute to depict as honestly and authentically as possible what he describes in an interview as an alternative experience of reality. Inspired by the Hearing Voices Movement, Florid rejects psychiatric traditions built upon a foundation of racism, sexism, classism, and Christocentrism. While the minimalist plot, focused on Jamal’s internal conflicts, doesn’t dive into historical analysis, these aspects are still represented through the ensemble. Jamal, his new next-door neighbor Kayla to whom he feels an instant closeness, and most of the other residents, belong to the social groups traditionally considered mentally inferior. Even today, they are more likely to be diagnosed with mental illnesses while less likely to receive adequate support.

The medication only numbs Jamal, who is kind and caring outside his paranoid episodes, to the point that he loses touch with reality. When the side effects become unbearable, he tosses the medication and smokes marijuana, while the voices grow louder and louder. External sensations, painful memories, fears and fantasies blend into one. Impersonated by different actors, Jamal’s voices carry distinct psychological impulses, from a childlike voice representing insecurity and innocence to rapper Unknown T articulating grandiosity and hyperbole. As the socio-realist story’s principal dramatic structure, the soundscape intertwines with the protagonist’s personality. In turns vulnerable and manic, Jules’ vibrant performance blends in with the non-professionals whose presence increases the condensed plot’s raw authenticity.

At only 84 minutes, Florid builds a nervous subjectivity, giving audiences no break from the constant whispers and occasional shouts the protagonist has to live with. Hectic and rough, but at the same time home to a tightly-knit community, London’s East End quarter mirrors Jamal’s emotional topography. Real locations and actual social workers bring their expertise and experience to the heartfelt project, framing people with psychological challenges with the humanity of which they are so often deprived. Adric Watson’s erratic cinematography translates Jamal’s emotions into visual disruptions, sometimes leaving the audience in doubt as to what is happening inside his head and what outside. It’s mostly they rather than the protagonist, who have to adapt their behavior.