Sorrow hangs heavily in the latest from Canadian writer-director Clement Virgo, based on the novel by David Chariandy. Brother is a Toronto-set drama exploring the bond between two mismatched siblings, the sons of Caribbean immigrants.

Beginning with an ominous incident involving an electricity pylon, and skipping back and forth in time, the film introduces us to brothers Francis (London-born actor Aaron Pierre, who positively radiates star quality) and Michael (lovely work from Lamar Johnson). The pair live in a warm, vibrantly painted home on a suburban housing estate with their hard-grafting single mother Ruth (a searing Marsha Stephanie Blake). 

Francis is bigger, fairer-skinned and more conventionally attractive than the quiet, geeky Michael, who hangs on his popular sibling’s every word. ‘Carry yourself better,’ Francis instructs him. ‘There’s always a way to show the world you’re not a nobody.’ But Francis is far from perfect himself, with the film highlighting the growing disaffection and anger bubbling beneath his too-cool-for-school demeanour.

The meat of the story unfolds in the early 90s, against a backdrop of Toronto’s burgeoning hip-hop scene, something which Francis longs to be part of and perhaps more could have been made of that. Virgo’s patient, emotionally loaded style adds huge weight to proceedings; characters say little but what they do say resonates, while Guy Godfree’s painterly visuals and Todor Kobakov’s melancholic score add elegance.

The film takes a solemn yet loving look at the shadow that can be cast by charismatic characters and what it’s like to trail in their wake. Francis is a big fish in a small pond with no easy way out, as Virgo illustrates the systemic prejudice this young Black man is up against. Quiet and careful it may be, yet Brother rages against a world in which even those that burn the brightest sometimes stand no chance. 

Brother is in cinemas from Friday 15 September.