“The thing about memory is, it’s a pit.” That’s the opening line of Brim, a gripping new indie feature that wrestles with memory, trauma, and the unrelenting grip of racism across three generations of a Black family in the rural South. 

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Directed, shot, and edited by Keenan Dailey in his feature debut – with Cinefied contributor Kevin Lau among its producers – the film is sometimes uneven in execution, but big-hearted in ambition. It’s a story that feels both harrowingly personal and urgently political.

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The narrative begins in the 1940s as teenage Leroy Payne (Roman Nelson) witnesses his father beaten bloody on their own land by racist neighbors who couldn’t stomach a Black family making a go of it. Leroy strikes back in a moment of defiance that seals his father’s fate. 

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Years later, adult Leroy (Diron Jones) finds his mother collapsed after a racially motivated mugging, holding her hand as she takes her last breath. Overcome, he turns to strange rituals, obsessively counting rocks while his bewildered girlfriend Rosie (Tisa Harriott) tries to pull him back from the edge.

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Their relationship forms the film’s spine, playing out against the backdrop of the civil rights movement as love and resilience repeatedly crash into systemic hate. Leroy serves as both protagonist and narrator, his struggle framing the dual themes of generational prejudice and untreated mental illness – a quietly unique perspective.

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The cast is made up largely of unknowns. Jones is steady and shows bright flashes of promise, but Harriott delivers the film’s standout performance. She’s tender in scenes with her grandmother’s apparent dementia (“our folks, we just fade faster,” she says), but it’s her work with Leroy that shows off her full range. Playful in courtship, compassionate in grief, and blistering when he disappears into himself – she’s the film’s emotional anchor.

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Visually, Brim is striking. Dailey’s cinematography makes inventive use of an infrared chrome filter, saturating the screen with glowing red-orange foliage that stitches decades together. It’s a visual language that feels almost operatic, even as the dialogue sometimes tips into over-exposition and the acting edges toward community-theater stiffness. 

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At times, the film feels like a stage play committed to celluloid – for better and for worse. But, in true indie fashion, the limitations of budget and craft are often eclipsed by the sheer force of theme.

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And when Brim lands, it devastates. Rosie’s murder following a civil rights demonstration is staged with brutal clarity, with Leroy left shattered and clutching their child in the wreckage. Later, the reveal that Leroy’s narration comes from prison letters to his son reframes the film with a gut punch, and sharply punctuates the cycles of injustice that just refuse to die.

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By the 1990s, the focus shifts to Leroy’s son, Desmond (Brian Keith), whose life is torn apart by the false promise of Clinton-era “tough on crime” policies. All it takes is a dropped wallet, a gun, and a false arrest – and Desmond is swallowed whole by the system. 

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In the present day, Brim follows older Desmond (Landry Simmons Jr., powerfully vulnerable in a smaller role) and the white man complicit in his downfall, both suffering from dementia but receiving starkly different care. The contrast cuts deep: suffering may be universal, but privilege still determines who gets help.

Brim is rough around the edges, no doubt. The dialogue can border on too heavy, the performances occasionally bumpy. But it’s also urgent and unflinching – a powerful film that grabs the viewer by the collar and insists we reckon with the not-so-distant past, and with how much those generations of hate still echo in the present.

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In its closing moments, Desmond’s son warns, “we’re reminded every day that we should forget about our past.” Brim refuses to forget. And while it may stumble in craft, in spirit it overflows, filling the cup to the brim.