52 Films by Women Vol 9. 22. The Man In My Basement (Director: Nadia Latif)

Pictured: Charles Blakey (Corey Hawkins) answers the door in a scene from the drama, 'The Man In My Basement', directed by Nadia Latif, who adapted Walter Mosley's novel working with the author. Still courtesy of Andscape / Hulu (US)

There are a few things wrong with British co-writer-director Nadia Latif’s feature debut, The Man In My Basement, adapted with the author from Walter Mosley’s novel, set as far as I can tell in 1986. Quite a few right things too. Overall, I remained intrigued throughout the near two-hour running time, being unfamiliar with the novel, never being sure where the story would go. It covers the subjects of guilt, isolation and heritage and is set in the African American community of Sag Harbor, formerly a major whaling and shipping port in Long Island, New York. ‘Moby Dick’ gets a shout out.

To dismiss what’s wrong with it, first there’s the title. It suggests a more ‘first person’ - principal viewpoint character - experience than the one we get. Although we witness protagonist Charles Blakey (Corey Hawkins), an unflushed guy who plays cards for cents, experience visions, we don’t ‘share’ his perspective in a consistent way, a strategy necessary to retain ambiguity. This, after all, is a mystery story about a man who takes up residence in a basement. There is also the question of whether it is Charles’ basement. He owes the bank $68,000 - missed payments on a mortgage - having inherited the house from his mother. He can’t say that he’s a homeowner.

Second, there is a clunky scene at the bank, when an employee gives him a deadline. Charles responds by throwing money at him. The scene is choppily spliced in; we are kept at a distance. As far as I could tell, Charles doesn’t get a receipt.

Third, there is the tone. Is this a psychological thriller with multiple hallucinations, for example, a dog that stares at Charles? There are two suspenseful set pieces, the first when Charles wanders around the house with a spade in his hand, the second when he closes his eyes while driving, switches off the car headlamps releases his grip of the steering wheel and lets the road decide his fate. He hits a deer and veers off the road. I for one was very glad the deer looked fake. I didn’t want to believe in the animal’s senseless death based on the whim of a man consumed by guilt, an inability to connect with others – Charles lets money or teasing get in the way of having meaningful relationships. The film toys with thriller conventions but doesn’t give in to them. It wants us the think about the meaning of the title.

We are in metaphor land (population: pick a number) in which a man stews in his two bad choices, stealing $433 from a cash register and letting a mean man die. Is redemption available to him? Should it be? The man in Charles’ ‘basement’ gave in to his worst impulses. Charles doesn’t kid himself that he himself deserves better.

This leads us to what is good about the film, its refusal to lighten the burden of bad choices. You broke it, you own it. The Man In My Basement might be a Disney film by default, shortly to be screened on Hulu (Disney+ in the UK) after a limited cinema release – grosses not tallied – but it doesn’t aim at spiritual uplift. There is redemption of a sort – or rather a substitution. I never quite believed it would be permanent.

So what about the actual man in the basement. This is Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe), a businessman who exploits opportunities – don’t they all? He’s into acquisitions, determining whether something is valuable, then procuring it (as basement level prices, no doubt) for his employer. He’s good at his job. So good that he has $65,000 to spend renting Charles’ basement for three months. ‘Only you must bring me coffee in the morning and not tell anyone I’m there,’ he adds.  

The arrangement is due to start November 1^st, but throughout the drama’s duration we never see any snow – or Thanksgiving. Maybe nobody’s thankful in Sag Harbor. Charles has a neighbour, Irene (Pamela Nomvete) who lives with her ailing mother. Irene’s existence, even as she reaches out to help Charles, seems thankless.

Before Anniston arrives – ‘and you must pick me up from the train station’ – Charles receives a set of crates. Any paperwork with that? Just an envelope full of cash. Charles fulfils his end of the bargain, having cleared out the basement with the one friend, Ricky (Jonathan Ajayi) not yet tired of his bull, but then is surprised by the contents of the crates.

What does Anniston use the basement for? My fingers won’t snitch. Just to say that were Anniston discovered, Charles would be in serious trouble. A power dynamic plays out, and it sure wasn’t worth the whiskey Anniston threw in with the $65,000, paid in instalments. Anniston knows quite a bit about his landlord. Knowledge, as they say, is something.

Pictured: 'A toast to an unusual tenancy.' Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe) and Charles Blakey (Corey Hawkins) in a scene from the film, 'The Man In My Basement', adapted from Walter Mosley's novel by director Nadia Latif, collaborating with the author. Still courtesy of Andscape / Hulu (US). 

But Anniston also indirectly awakens Charles to the value of the stuff Charles’ mother had hoarded, including some masks from West Africa that must be over a hundred years old. Charles asks Anniston to appraise them. ‘Can you hand me a pocketknife?’ he asks. Charles finds one. Anniston scrapes off the brown covering to reveal gold leaf. ‘You’re welcome,’ he remarks.

Ricky puts Charles in touch with the unlikely-named Narciss Gully (Anna Diop), a dealer of antiquities, who appraises the items in his possession, including a quilt with an unusual design. She is impressed. However, she’s just a broker. It’ll take Charles up to nine months to release the value of his mother’s stuff. But Charles needs cash now.

‘I hope you’re enjoying spending my money,’ Anniston goads his landlord. Apart from stocking up on food and booze, Charles doesn’t go mad. In one scene, he wears his father’s suit, which is obviously too large for him and flaps in the wind. Heck, I don’t want to look at a man and tell if it’s a good day to fly a kite. Still, the suit gets Charles noticed. ‘Are you a music producer?’ he is asked by a white woman. ‘No, businessman. Import, export,’ he replies. ‘What do you import?’ the woman asks. ‘Anything you like baby.’ There’s an awkward coupling scene in a car at a gas station. A white guy peers inside disapprovingly as Charles and the woman kiss. The woman leaves the car to get something. Then Charles sees a vicious looking black dog staring at him. Frightened, he drives away.

Charles’ sex life is also defined by a scene in which he listens to Ricky and Ricky’s girlfriend Bethany (Tamara Lawrence) getting intimate. He puts one of his mother’s African masks on his face and his hand down his trousers. Later, Bethany finds him asleep on the sofa, his fly open, looking guilty. She reminds him that she was once sweet on him, though many a time she passed the Blakey house and was afraid to go inside lest Charles’ mother start moralizing. Charles smiles.

Much of the second half of the film is taken up with the fraught relationship between Charles and Anniston. Charles wants answers. Anniston agrees to respond truthfully to three questions at a time but will ask Charles one in return. He has done some bad stuff. ‘If you kill someone when ordered to, it’s not murder,’ Anniston informs him, in between anecdotes about shooting someone in the eye and feeding a child to a ravenous canine. Charles’ misdemeanours don’t really compare.

Intent matters. If you make a conscious decision to harm someone – or deny them care – then you can’t be a good person. Charles isn’t just plagued by the spectre of a dog – a metaphor for alcoholism – but imagines a werewolf underneath the floorboards in one scene.

Anniston’s decision to spend some of his time reading dry reference books suggests someone who wants to use time wisely. Charles naturally assumes his tenant is a criminal on the run. ‘Some would say I am a criminal. Others would not,’ Anniston responds frustratingly.

The film threatens to be a takedown of capitalism, represented by Anniston, but is simpler than that. The ending has a certain inevitability given the contents of Charles’ backyard. Is it his though? Latif’s refusal to steer the film towards a genre conclusion allows the audience to concentrate on the issues raised. She also shows us male nudity – Hawkins as well as Dafoe, the former in a shower scene, the latter surprised in the basement. She hired a male intimacy coordinator, which is unusual, though it shouldn’t be.

In a leading role, Hawkins emphasises Charles’ fear. It isn’t a performance that cements a movie star’s image. Dafoe continues to go where his peers do not, giving another interesting, edgy performance; the trademark grin comes out to play. The interiors were filmed in Wales; the film features a contingent of British actors putting on American accents in a convincing manner. The Man In My Basement is a more satisfying Mosley adaptation than Devil in a Blue Dress, Carl Franklin’s film featuring Denzel Washington as a World War II veteran turned detective, which was heavily plot driven but had slick production values. The pleasures and depth of Latif’s film outweigh its faults.

Reviewed at Picturehouse Finsbury Park, Screen Six, Thursday 18 September 2025, 17:10 screening