Farming proposes a ridiculous notion on which to base a movie: a black Nigerian child, Enitan, is fostered to a white English working-class couple while his Nigerian parents work and study in England.
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As he grows up in 1960s Britain under the racism fuelled by Enoch Powell's pronouncements to keep Britain white, he develops a self-loathing that hammers a hatred of black people into his brain.
He joins a gang of nationalistic, racist skinheads and uses brutal violence to express his hatred of black people.
The skinheads offer him a family that is dysfunctional to the extreme but one that provides a channel for him the express his own self-loathing.
A black Nigerian teenager becomes a member of the racist Tilbury skins. It would never happen. What a preposterous notion for a film.
Except it did happen.
Farming is based on a practice in England from the 1960s until the 1980s that sanctioned "farming" black children out to white foster parents.
Eni (Damson Idris) is based on the film's director and writer Adewale Akinnuoye-Agabe's real life experiences.
Eni inscribes the vilest racial epithet onto his knuckles, screams racial abuse at other black people and incites extreme violence that is depicted in all its ferocity and cruelty on the screen.
With the Tilbury skins, Eni finds comfort and an escape from the bullying and violence he experiences at home with his English "Mum" Ingrid (Kate Beckinsale), from students at school and on the streets from unwelcoming British adults and kids.
Levi is the brains behind the Tilbury skins. And that's not saying much. He leads a motley group of skinheads. With names like Scum, Jonesy and Fathead, you get a fair idea of the thick-headed thugs who comprise the gang. Ironically, they listen to ska and reggae music.
Their depiction at time borders on caricature but manages to capture a sense of the actuality of Adewale's experiences.
Eni is infused with hate. The Tilbury skins don't consider him an equal. They treat him as their pet. And that's all right with Eni.
Raw and powerful emotions bleed through the screen.
Skin as a title for the film would have captured more strongly the sentiments expressed in the film about racial and ethnic identity, self-loathing, skinheads, the vile words carved into Eni's knuckles and his attempts to painfully scrub away his dark skin.
To get an idea if you will cope with the verbal, psychological and physical violence depicted in the film, you should consider your reaction to Romper Stomper and American History X. If those films were not to your taste, then you won't handle Farming.
Farming is a case of the truth being more brutal than fiction.
