Critic Reviews

Remarkably, this is Cole's first time in front of the camera. He approaches Alex’s emotional journey as a teenager with a sure touch, switching effortlessly between innocence and a gradual hardening.

Even as its lead character endures physical and psychological torment at the hands of authorities, the film is very much of a piece with the ebullience of “Small Axe,” as the ongoing themes of community, music and defiance play a huge role in the story.

A film in which violence and stillness alternate with queasy regularity.

McQueen makes the viewer work towards understanding the themes and subtexts of these films. He gloriously recreates the jaw-dropping delight the bullied, racially-taunted kid experiences the first time he sees the shops and colorfully-attired street life of “his” people on moving day.

Reggae music is a through line in almost all five installments of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, but in Alex Wheatle, it’s a lifeline.

At just a fraction over an hour, the film doesn't match the narrative scope of Mangrove or Red, White and Blue. Nor does it have the enveloping intimacy of Lovers Rock, the only Small Axe entry not based on a true story. But its understated celebration of resilience and hope makes the compelling snapshot very much in keeping with the deeply personal nature of this project for McQueen.

It would take a hard heart not to break at the sight of Alex Wheatle (now a much-loved children’s author in the UK), sitting frozen on the sofa as his friend’s mother prepares his first-ever Christmas meal.

“Alex Wheatle” is like a sketch for the biopic it might have been, but by the end you feel you’ve glimpsed the key fragment of a life.

While it’s more sprawling than the other entries, Alex Wheatle is Small Axe’s strongest character piece, Wheatle’s coming-of-age and process of ‘unlearning’ the dogma of England’s white upper classes told with powerful emotivity and clarity.

It's first and foremost a teenage coming-of-age tale​, 65 electric minutes​ ​packed with financial hardship, racial demonisation and reggae.