Kipkemboi / The Wall Street Boy—Film Review
Matthew Dawkins
Now and again, we hear a version of the same story: despite limited access to technology and no indoor plumbing, a prodigy from a place you don’t expect prodigies defies all odds. He attracts the attention of the metropole and is encouraged to move closer to power, where he is unwittingly reduced to a didactic—“If he can do it, so can you.” However, in Kipkemboi, when the titular character’s father passes away, Kipkemboi is forced to decline an offer from a prestigious, overseas university. Instead, he remains in his hamlet in Metipso, Kenya, to support his newly widowed mother.
Director Charles Uwagbai, cuts the predictable narrative short in favour of one with teeth, complicating opportunity and responsibility in an increasingly globalized, capitalistic economy. With the help of his best friend, Chipchirchir and her literature, Kipkemboi discovers how Wall Street financiers earn their living and he develops a new algorithm for more efficient, high-yield earnings in global capital markets. Kipkemboi’s invention earns him millions in a matter of days, more than enough money to repay his tuition fund and build a cell tower in his village. More money than his stalwart father had seen in his entire lifetime. When questioned by bewildered villagers, Kipkemboi can only offer that his work is not illegal. This was how the rich earned money in the United States, no callouses or sweat required, just markets and ignorant people doing the work for you.
Kipkemboi’s disillusionment is two-fold. The neighbours must contend with the farce of meritocracy—a reversal of fortune and drudgery are not directly proportional. There are people who earn livelihoods without lifting a finger abetted by the same systems that disenfrachise so many others. Similarly, Kipkemboi, now with more money than he knows what to do with, must grapple with the pliability of global economies and more urgently, economic disparity and insecurity as a byproduct of deliberate knowledge obfuscation.
Director Charles Uwagbai, cuts the predictable narrative short in favour of one with teeth, complicating opportunity and responsibility in an increasingly globalized, capitalistic economy. With the help of his best friend, Chipchirchir and her literature, Kipkemboi discovers how Wall Street financiers earn their living and he develops a new algorithm for more efficient, high-yield earnings in global capital markets. Kipkemboi’s invention earns him millions in a matter of days, more than enough money to repay his tuition fund and build a cell tower in his village. More money than his stalwart father had seen in his entire lifetime. When questioned by bewildered villagers, Kipkemboi can only offer that his work is not illegal. This was how the rich earned money in the United States, no callouses or sweat required, just markets and ignorant people doing the work for you.
Kipkemboi’s disillusionment is two-fold. The neighbours must contend with the farce of meritocracy—a reversal of fortune and drudgery are not directly proportional. There are people who earn livelihoods without lifting a finger abetted by the same systems that disenfrachise so many others. Similarly, Kipkemboi, now with more money than he knows what to do with, must grapple with the pliability of global economies and more urgently, economic disparity and insecurity as a byproduct of deliberate knowledge obfuscation.
Kipkemboi / The Wall Street Boy, directed by Charles Uwagbai, 2023
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The latter engenders the primary conflict in the film. Kipkemboi is hunted across Kenya by local authorities and U.S. bank representatives—not for his money, but for his algorithm. In other words, any advancements concerning the global economy is regarded as dangerous when originated and democratized outside the Global North. It risks tipping the scales too far the other way, blurring the line between the haves and have-nots. Kipkemboi cannot outrun military and armed forces, and so Uwagbai asks his audience to consider wealth, the means by which one may obtain it and who may allowed those means, in a rigged system.
By the film’s end, Kipkemboi destroys the algorithm on his own terms, ending the chase. But in doing so, he also exposes the system’s blind spot. In prioritizing information and algorithms over people, imagination, and community, the true sources of innovation are overlooked. Kipkemboi uses his newfound wealth to build a classroom where he teaches math and plans to construct a library beside it, eventually envisioning a full school capable of providing a holistic education. He wants to teach as many students as possible, because without Chipchirchir and her love of literature, he would not have made his breakthrough. Sure, the original algorithm is lost but Kipkemboi understands that the conditions required to spark ingenuity are not rooted in excess, but in community. Charles Uwagbai’s Kipkemboi pulls at the string tying obscene wealth to global economic inequality and refocuses his audience’s attention on money—not as an end, but as a tool. One capable of fast-tracking prodigious innovation, especially from the places people least expect. |
Matthew Dawkins is a Jamaican award-winning author and poet. His debut novel Until We Break, and other work, explores subject matters including race, nationhood, and mental health. His work has been featured in Arc Poetry, Westwind Poetry, Indolent Books, Pinhole Poetry, and more. Matthew was the 2022-2023 Student Writer in Residence at Western University, where he graduated with a B.A. in Arts and Humanities and English Literature. Born and raised in Jamaica, Matthew now resides in Toronto, Canada, on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Mississauga of the Credit First Nations, and the Wendake-Nionwentsio peoples. You can learn more about Matthew and his art at matthewdawkinswrites.com
