Philadelphia Weekly

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The average Hollywood writer wouldn’t understand Philly. A run-of-the-mill, fast-talking, Botox-ed hack wouldn’t appreciate the nuances of our city, a place so easily maligned and yet one with soul, pride and unconventional beauty.

It takes a local to capture the essence of our attitude– libertarian to the core but annoyed about how everyone else’s freedoms obstruct our own.

Mark Webber gets it.

Webber, 28, attended the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and wrote and directed Explicit Ills, a Philly-set feature film that opens tonight at the Ritz at the Bourse.

“It’s really personal for me,” he says. “The film is based on a lot of life experiences that I’ve had, conflicts and situations I’ve been in.”

Webber was born in the Midwest but spent his formative years living in Philly. He and his mother, human rights activist Cheri Honkala, lived on the street for about eight months when they first arrived here, crashing under the El or along Fifth Street between Girard and Lehigh.

As a teenager, he marched alongside his mother and the citizens’ empowerment organization she founded, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. He learned the tales of those around him—the impoverished, addicted and ailing—and it influenced his life.

“I wasn’t trying to create a documentary-style, gritty account of my life,” Webber says of the film, his first as a director. “I wanted to take these big troublesome, real life issues and heighten things in a film that was entertaining and pleasing to look at.”

The result is a visually engaging series of vignettes about four sets of struggling Philadelphians leading parallel but separate lives. Most of the characters are dealing with issues of money, drugs, love or social injustice. The bulk of the action takes place amid the colorful, crumbling homes of Kensington or resurging Northern Liberties, Webber’s old stomping grounds.

“I used to go fuck around with my friends at the old Schmidt’s Brewery [in Northern Liberties],” he says. “Everything in the film hits really close to home.”

Several of the scenes are real—like the food distribution for the needy that was filmed at Fifth and Lehigh. Some of the actors are local kids who showed up at an open casting call. Most of the characters are rooted in people Webber knew in Philly before his acting career led him away.

Babo (Francisco Burgos) is a 7-year-old living in poverty with his mother, played by Rosario Dawson. The closest thing to a central character in the movie, Babo suffers from asthma, he mopes around, gets picked on by the school bully, then picks up dog shit to earn money so that he can buy the bully a brand new pair of sneakers.

He befriends Rocco (Paul Dano), an aspiring actor whose career trajectory has rocketed him to performing as a ninja at a kid’s birthday party in North Philly.

“You shouldn’t be smoking,” the precocious Babo tells Rocco while they’re both hiding from the party action.

“Yes, you are right,” Rocco responds. “But at this moment, getting a little closer to death is a good thing.”

Teenager Demetri (Martin Cepeda) lives near Babo but he spends the entire film wooing a girl (Destini Edwards). He first tries the tough guy approach (“You want to kiss me tomorrow?” he asks her). When that fails, he transforms himself into an aloof, argyle sweater vest-wearing bookworm.

It seems everyone in the film is trying to be something they are not.

Hipster art school student Michelle (Frankie Shaw) smokes pot to lose her inhibitions. She falls for her fixie-riding drug dealer, Jacob (Lou Taylor Pucci). We follow them through the nascent stages of their drug-induced, tumultuous relationship that feels far removed from Babo.

Finally, there is Kaleef (Tariq Trotter, aka “Black Thought” from the Roots), his pot-smoking wife Jill (Naomie Harris) and their weightlifting son Heslin (Ross K. Kim-McManus). Kaleef dreams of opening a health food/ produce store, and he makes his own colon cleanser.