Florid

Bluesky

Noise of all sorts takes on a different intensity in Florid, in accordance to the mental struggles of Jamal (Jonathan Jules). What most people would regard as an average walk down a bustling London street, becomes an overwhelming cacophony of multiple sounds as we experience it from his perspective while he heads to the supported housing where he lives. Even when he’s alone, it’s not quiet, although when we first hear the same voices he does, they dance almost on the edge of hearing, indistinct. Later, due to a lack of medication, they’ll become more invasive – “Liar!” – unexpected punctuation or – “dirty” – a distraction from whatever else Jamal is trying to do and something that feeds his increasingly disorganised thinking.

Schizophrenia has historically poor representation at the movies, most often cropping up as a crude shorthand reason for a spot of random violence. The condition is actually a lot more common than you might imagine, affecting about one in 100 people in the UK, so it’s welcome that first-time director Billy Lumby approaches it in a serious and unvarnished manner, with a script developed “in collaboration with London’s mental health community”. This clear-sighted perspective, coupled with carefully calibrated sound design from Dario Swade, doesn’t make light of what Jamal experiences, but nor does it sensationalise them – Jamal may struggle with his mental health but he isn’t simply defined by the illness.

Spending his days in his room, working on rap lyrics which he believes will make him famous, he is also trying to get his meds on the right track, smoking weed as a way of self-medicating, although he tells his doc he will definitely cut down. Newly arrived in the shared block is Kyla (Saskia Chana), whose mental health issues are compounded by her toxic drug-dealing boyfriend, the appropriately named Slimzy (Marlon Bravi). Jamal likes Kyla a lot but the meds he’s taking come with a raft of side-effects that affect both his thought processes and his motor skills. By keeping us so close to Jamal, Lumby, whose film closed the New Directors section at San Sebastian Film Festival helps us to understand why coming off his meds becomes appealing. Especially as, once he does, delusions begin to invade his normality.

Crucially, Jamal is not alone. While being in the supported living situation that he is in may not prevent him from having a mental health episode, it means that when he does it can be recognised and actions taken. Hollywood’s version of this story might have Jamal suddenly finding a stratospheric career in rap and leaving his cares behind but, thankfully, this is not a fairy tale. Instead, Lumby shows how the road to living life to the fullest possible while still hearing voices is taken in baby steps and that the road doesn’t always head forward or straight. Jules is magnetic in the central role, allowing the sweet natured optimism of Jamal shine out, even as he becomes increasingly mentally exhausted, so that he never loses sympathy. Jamal has to work through things from his past and it could be that music therapy will also offer an outlet, but, again this is shown as a gradual part of holistic approach to his condition.

Honest and humanistic, Florid’s coda, which shows real people talking about their own mental health, comes as a reminder that behind this fiction is a chorus of lived experience.

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