The Obituary of Tunde Johnson review – bold reinvention of the time loop drama

In The Obituary of Tunde Johnson, the debut feature from Everybody Hates Chris co-creator Ali LeRoi, Tunde Johnson (Steven Silver) is in love, and not just any love. It’s the sort of saccharine, ephemeral infatuation you only experience once: when it’s entirely new to you, and everything else, for all you care, could wash away in the rain. His muse is Soren (Spencer Neville), an archetypal jock with one foot ever in the closet. Their relationship is a secret but brims, nonetheless, with heady desire.

On the evening of May 28th, Tunde comes out as gay to his wealthy parents, who wrap him in their arms. “Our love is unconditional,” says his father (Sammi Rotibi). And so Tunde drives off into the night to a party where his man awaits him.

Cue sirens. He pulls over. Two white officers, bitterly noting Tunde’s chunky, expensive looking watch, interrogate him. Tunde reaches for his phone, and he is shot to death. But then, he wakes up. It’s May 28th. Tunde Johnson is in love, and not just any love. It’s the sort of saccharine, ephemeral infatuation you only experience once…

There are a bunch of Groundhog Day derivatives already out there, from Happy Death Day to Palm Springs, but The Obituary of Tunde Johnson casts some very novel magic with the time loop device. Here, the trigger is literally a trigger, or indeed, in one case, a barbaric chokehold (capped off with the spine-chilling, timely narration of “I can’t breathe”). Thus the film’s wider chronology is punctuated by the scenes of Tunde’s death, shot in an unflinchingly candid fashion; every time, the heart races, and you feel as though your head has been plunged below icy water.

With most time loop films, the protagonist’s goal is always, albeit incidentally or explicitly, to break the loop and return to normalcy. The way in which the loop is quietly severed in The Obituary of Tunde Johnson marks the film’s conclusive statement: though it's rendered here through a lens of science-fiction, the experience of Tunde is that of all Black Americans, a population unendingly threatened by racist subjugation.

One might feel compelled to look at the scenes of Tunde’s death as trauma porn, but the brutality of the violence is not only necessary to emphasise director Ali LeRoi and writer Stanley Kalu’s point, it is simply the way of things. On Kalu: though there are some intermittent pacing issues, this is a remarkable debut script, not least from someone who was a student at the time of writing. It’s elevated, too, by Silver’s compelling lead. The Obituary of Tunde Johnson is not without fault, but as the confluence of so many confident young voices – well, this is quite something.

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson was screened as part of the BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival 2021. A UK release date is yet to be announced.