The Last Black Man in San Francisco: The Fight for Home (Movie Review)

Released in 2019, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an intimate poem about gentrification in the San Francisco area. At the center of the plot are Jimmie and Montgomery, played by Jimmie Falls and Johnathan Mayors in a stunning debut. Best friends who face the changing landscape together, Jimmie and Montgomery offer a fresh interpretation of masculine friendship; they are kind, compassionate, and understanding towards each other in a way we don’t often see in mainstream media. For the majority of the plot, Jimmie obsesses over reclaiming his childhood home, a beautiful Victorian house in the increasingly developing area of the Fillmore district. As they go up against law enforcement and realtors, Jimmie and Montgomery fight for their place in a home that is slipping away from them.

"Let us give each other the courage to see beyond the stories we were born into!" Montgomery Allen

The Last Black Man in San Francisco raises the question of who deserves to live in a city. A key concept present in this film is displacement. In the once prolific African-American neighborhood of the Fillmore district, there now only live rich white millionaires. Pushing the point further, the film mentions several times that before the Fillmore district proliferated with African-American families, Japanese families occupied the area. These were the Japanese families that were forced to leave their property and live in internment camps during World War II. 

"“I’m the last one left.” Jimmie Fails

Is displacement part of the human experience or are we entitled to our homes? Is it inevitable? Should we fight back? The Last Black Man in San Francisco does not answer these questions. It deliberates and lets us decide for ourselves. This ambiguity is an extremely refreshing prospect in the film industry, something viewers will appreciate.

Every controversial topic that The Last Black Man in San Francisco tackles, it tackles with care and tenderness. The conversation of gentrification is often surrounded with feelings of anger and indignation—as shown in recent films from the bay like Blindspotting and Sorry to Bother You, but we can’t fool ourselves into thinking that these are the only feelings present. Watching Jimmie and Montgomery fumble around in beautiful but morphing San Francisco, the viewer knows more than ever how much love plays a part in the process. Like Jimmie says on a sunlit bus at the end of the movie, “You don’t get to hate San Francisco. You don’t get to hate it unless you love it.”