We are in the middle of a global refugee crisis on scale not seen since World War II. Record numbers of people desperate to flee political and economic instability are leaving their countries of origin, by any means necessary. They risk deportation and even death, but there are those who successfully make it to Europe and the U.S. to begin a new life with their hopes and dreams. In his first feature-length film, the New York–based Nigerian director Andrew Dosunmu focuses on just such an immigrant. The protagonist of Restless City is Djibril, a twenty-one-year-old Senegalese man living in Harlem. He wants to make it as a musician, but when the film opens we find him peddling bootleg CDs on the street for Bekay, another West African who is the head of several illicit operations, including prostitution and loan sharking. It becomes clear how out of reach Djibril’s big dreams are as we watch him negotiate the city on his moped, working as a messenger. He and his friends live jammed together in their apartment and are under constant pressure to find work. They are relative newcomers, and they have no safety net. Everyone in their community is in an equally precarious position. This, of course, makes them easy targets for exploitation by people like Bekay, who has found his success through brutality and economic oppression.

It is in Bekay’s brothel that Djibril meets and falls in love with Trini, a prostitute. Her origins and backstory remain mysterious throughout the film, and the audience can only guess how she ended up there. Because Bekay offers Djibril the chance to make an album, Djibril is courting disaster by flirting with Trini. However, their mutual attraction proves impossible to resist. One of the most compelling aspects of this film is the way the characters face awful choices that force them to suspend or compromise their morality out of desperation for short-term gain. Both Trini and Djibril try to distance themselves from Bekay by finding legitimate work, but the gangster makes it clear that he will not tolerate this. His are more than empty threats. There is a build up of tension in several scenes that hint darkly at the inevitable violence to come. This tension originates in the vast gulf between what the characters want—wealth, fame, and the power of self-determination—and what they can get— fear, mistrust, exploitation, and violence. They look, and feel, caught. In this way, the film illustrates the desperation of their immigrant experience, and how quickly the American dream can turn into a nightmare.

Dosunmu’s previous experience in music video and fashion photography is evident in the stunning aesthetic values of the film, achieved in collaboration with the cinematographer Bradford Young. The film’s bars, backrooms, and brothels shimmer with seedy glamour, reflected by the languorous bodies draped in and around them. They are seductive in their beauty, which the audience takes in mostly through the sunglass-shielded eyes of Djibril. The film’s sparse focus on narration and dialogue contrasts with its multitude of silent shots of the main characters, seen either in close-up or across the large spaces that New Yorkers inhabit. They seem to be trying to absorb the shifting ground beneath their feet. There are many frames in which we perceive the characters through plate glass. One of the most poignant of these scenes is a view through the storefront of the beauty shop in which Trini has found work as a sweeper. It is as if she is literally seeing the world through a new and different lens. The slow rhythm of the soundtrack, or its conspicuous absence in places, also contrasts with the bustling pace of New York City. This adds to the film’s sense of jarred bewilderment and foreboding, although at times it can feel like a distraction from the emotional thrust of the film’s themes, and the audience remains somewhat removed from the internal turmoil of Djibril, Trini, and the other characters. When the opera music is eventually cranked up, it feels clichéd and melodramatic.

To Dosunmu’s credit, he creates a compelling and impressive film from a fairly forgettable script written by Eugene Gussenhoven. It was the 2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection. Unlike Nollywood films, Restless City is firmly rooted in gritty reality. There is no element of the supernatural, either as witchcraft or salvation. The theatricality of Nollywood acting is replaced with performances so subdued as to be almost languid—except for the simmering tension that eventually reaches its boiling point. Restless City details the perils of African arrivals in the biggest U.S. city who have neither family money nor well-established networks. They have to hustle to survive, and having ambition as well as the willingness to work hard is simply not enough to guard against those perils. The heartbreaking story of Trini and Djibril’s ill-fated love is portrayed as the cost of doing business for an African immigrant in the Big Apple.