(This video contains strong language and is considered NSFW)
There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. That’s a theme Mike Epps explores in this scene-stealing moment from the new film “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.”
Joe Talbot’s drama is all about finding identity in a place you no longer recognize or call home. It follows actor Jimmie Fails — who co-wrote the story with Talbot — as a version of himself as he grapples with San Francisco’s growing gentrification and his place in it. The film finds Fails returning to his childhood home while seeking to reconnect with the old friends and family he left behind, serving as an intimate character study about male friendship and emotions.
In this exclusive clip from the film, Epps plays a homeless local who Fails notes just lives in his car alone and drives around. Epps describes seeing Fails’s father looking “good and lonely, by his self.” And Epps gives the moment his signature humor and levity before making it perfectly introspective, somber and profound.
“He’s home alone, he ain’t at home, but he’s alone. He’s alone with no home,” Epps says in the clip. “I’m not alone. People like me. I’m liked.”
“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” debuted to strong reviews at this year’s Sundance and was acquired by A24. TheWrap’s critic said out of Sundance that the film is far more than a love letter to the city of San Francisco but that it “seeks to dissect the nostalgia and frustrations about a place that no longer feels entirely like home.”
Danny Glover, Tichina Arnold and breakout performer Jonathan Majors star in the drama, which opened on June 7 but is expanding wider this weekend. Watch the exclusive clip featuring Epps and Fails above.