Though Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology is meant to be five films and not one miniseries, there’s a sense that the final feature, Education, brings everything together, at least as much as that’s possible with separate characters and worlds for each entry. In a way, it evokes the fourth (and best) season of The Wire, taking everything we’ve absorbed in more adult stories over the past four films and showing us how these lives start, and how the system that’s supposed to be supporting them is failing them.
As bathed in realism as Small Axe’s other entries, McQueen delivers Education documentary style. Receptive to the harsh lighting of school facilities, the film turns its lead’s education into what it really is: a pre-emptive prison sentence. Kingsley Smith (Kenyah Sandy) is a 12-year-old fighting for his life in the public school system when we meet him. His parents (Sharlene Whyte and Daniel Francis) work multiple jobs to keep a roof over their heads, with no time to pay attention when Kingsley is moved to a school for special needs for being just slightly disruptive in class.
The first half of the just 63-minute Education is a dour affair, a punishing look at the United Kingdom (but let’s not pretend they’re the only guilty party) and how it managed a new wave of brushed-under-the-rug racial segregation that belittles Black children from the ground up. Kingsley’s family knows he’s bright, especially his endlessly encouraging older sister Stephanie (Tamara Lawrence), but in the everyday rush of their lives, he’s at first blamed for failing even with the cards significantly stacked up against him. But just when the film feels as though it’s grim portrait may overstay its welcome, the second half leaps into a tale of activism.
When Hazel (Naomi Ackie), a member of a group of West Indian women prepared to fight the school system, visits Kingsley’s school, Education comes alive, igniting a fire in the characters to see the truth and fight for this boy’s life. This is where Whyte and Lawrence start to run away with the film, Sandy starting as and remaining a rock-solid emotional core to guide us through the plot. But Whyte in particular handles her arc beautifully.
Ultimately, as the film rallies itself, it moves away from displaying lackluster municipal support and more toward a genuine sense of community, one willing to rise up and ensure its future is brighter than its past. Sandy believably shows us what happens when a kid feels inspired and supported by their education, and McQueen and co-writer Alastair Siddons miraculously avoid any sense of schmaltz.
As with many of Small Axe’s successes, Education is separated by its perspective. This is a story about generational Black resilience that uplifts because it’s a pure, experiential expression. And as with the rest of the films, it is incredibly economic time wise, ending in a perfect dash that is spiritually fulfilling while making you wish you could spend a little more time with these characters on the upswing. But McQueen has proved with these five tales a master of knowing when to wrap-up. Among them, Education stands tall, second best to Lovers Rock yet still a towering achievement on its own. As an ending for Small Axe, if you can call it that, it pushes forward, leaving us on a pitch-perfect note of the ground gained, and more importantly by whom, in the fight for racial equality.
