Right Near the Beach

Simmering beneath the surface of writer/director Gibrey Allen’s debut feature Right Near the Beach is a palpable sense of frustration—a frustration that is felt almost immediately through the intensely internal and reflective framing and direction of the film. To call it poetic would be an understatement, as the camera winds and drifts through it scenes with immense purpose. After star Jamaican sprinter Jeffrey Jacobs is brutally murdered, the pieces of his cut-short life must be picked up by his father. However, the details of Jeffrey’s life that used to be cloaked in secret are coming to the surface. Jeffrey’s father must deal with these compounding hardships, as his pursuit of simply finding justice for his son’s murder is clouded by larger scandals. Beach is a film that deals with emotion and intent in the abstract, rarely using dialogue to codify what is being depicted on screen. Allen opts for a much more visual and subtextual mode of expression; one that allows the viewer to be enveloped in the sadness and frustration of Jeffrey’s father.