Language: English
If you’ve watched a parent or grandparent suffer from progressively deteriorating dementia in the later stages of their life, then The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey on Apple TV+ might hit hard.
The eponymous Ptolemy Grey (Samuel L Jackson) is 91 years old and rapidly losing cognitive function. He sees and experiences flashes of memory but is unable to make much sense of it. Ptolemy’s life seems like one of voluntary isolation and squalor. His home is packed to the brim with items he doesn’t need or use, perhaps representing the state of his mind – so much clutter accumulated over a nonagenarian lifetime, that he is unable to make any sense of it.
His kindly grandnephew and caregiver, Reggie (Omar Benson Miller) has set up an appointment with a doctor for an experimental treatment for his memory condition. Alas, before they can make it for the appointment, Reggie is shot and killed by person(s) unknown. And so, Ptolemy’s care passes into the hands of the initially reluctant tough-as-nails teenager Robyn (Dominique Fishback). This pair eventually does make it to the appointment made by Reggie, to avail of this mysterious wonder treatment. Sure enough, Grey’s memory starts to come miraculously back – though there’s a price to be paid.
Grey uses his sudden but temporary spurt of lucidity to set his affairs in order, and perhaps try and find out why Reggie was killed and who did it. Yet, the show really isn’t about this miracle treatment or what Ptolemy does once he receives it. A plot synopsis might deceptively read like something out of Black Mirror, but the show’s purpose for being is to remind America that Black lives do matter.
At the premiere of the limited series, Jackson spoke about it being over a decade-long journey of bringing this project to fruition, armed with the rights to the 2010 book of the same name by Walter Moseley – who is also the creator of the show.
Jackson also says that they wouldn’t have been able to do justice to the story if they had made it as a 2-hour film. That, it appears, is a belief stemming not from the fact that there is six hours’ worth of story to be told here. Far from it. In fact, I’d argue that it would have made for a cracking feature if it succinctly played up its key themes but moved the plot along quickly.
No, the purpose of stretching it out over six episodes is perhaps to make you truly feel what Grey is going through, what a lifetime of being Black in America has done to him. The show often plays out like a stream of his consciousness. He sees flashes from his childhood, of his childhood guardian Coydog and his eventual fate; of his prime years and the free-spirited love of his life Sensia. We also see what being around him and experiencing a slice of his life does to young Robyn.
The relationship between Ptolemy and Robyn is at the heart of the show, and the two of them are spectacular. The veteran Jackson has proven his caliber time and again across genres, budgets and styles. Yet, he will still surprise you with his performance here.
Travelling the gamut between utterly helpless to invigorated with purpose, Jackson’s turn is moving, endearing and heartbreaking. This will go down as one of Samuel L. Jackson’s best.
Young Fishback, on the other hand, is a force of nature. Her Robyn just instinctively feels like a trickier part to play. As an underprivileged black teen girl in America, Robyn’s life is of the kind that has trained her to sleep with a knife in hand, ready to snap awake instantly and wield the weapon to ward off any threats. (Can that kind of sleep really even be called sleep?)
Unsurprisingly for her, every contact with another human is a potential threat, race no bar. From the guy at the counter of the corner store to the son of the family friend who gives her sleeping space on her couch, Robyn’s world is frustratingly hostile, yet she already seems adept at navigating it. You’re reminded of this time and again. It is why she takes time even to trust the intentions of the demented old grandfather-figure who suddenly enters her life.
So, even though their respective struggles are conveyed repeatedly and often unnecessarily, the scenes between the two of them are consistently watchable. That doesn’t mean that this is an easy story to follow all the way through. Its melancholic, old-school look, particularly the grungy warmth of the indoor spaces, makes everything seem doubly intense, with a hint of claustrophobia. There are plenty of scenes that are difficult to watch, not because they are physically violent, but because they speak to generations of systemic violence that Black people have faced in America.
Think of the young Black American male who is a perpetual suspect in everyone’s eyes, including other Black strangers who constantly mistrust him. What does morality look like for a person like that? Is it a surprise that he doesn’t shy away from the very actions everyone assumes of him anyway? Or the relationship that the men and women from that kind of background share, wherein the woman has to tolerate a whole lot more oppression at the hands of the man, because even she knows what that man might face out there if she tried to out him. It is a toxic situation that will seem instantly familiar, to anyone anywhere. The wounds from centuries ago don’t heal because society has never stopped scraping at them. That’s what this show often does as well. It doesn’t care for nuance, because it appears the time for that is long gone.
What you will take away though at the end, is love – the one between Ptolemy and Robyn. If the show were to be edited down to feature-film length, that would be the highlight, the ray of hope in the darkness of our world and theirs. This exploration of the dynamic between two people of vastly separated generations, with race in America as an undercurrent, was seen recently in Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho. That was a frothy, feelgood and ultimately forgettable film. This show, if you sit painstakingly through it, is something you’re unlikely to forget in a hurry.
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey is available to stream on Apple TV+.
Pradeep Menon is a Mumbai-based writer and independent filmmaker.
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