There are homecomings, and then there are returns. The first suggests a warm embrace, a celebration of origin. The second implies a reckoning, a confrontation with a past self. In Qasim Basir’s To Live and Die and Live, we are thrown directly into the latter.
The film introduces us to Muhammad, a director who has ostensibly built a successful life in the sun-bleached, competitive ecosystem of Los Angeles. He returns to his hometown of Detroit for the somber occasion of his stepfather’s funeral, a man whose community standing was as solid as the buildings he helped erect.
Yet, Muhammad’s first actions are not those of a grieving son seeking solace. He sidesteps family and plunges directly into the city’s nocturnal underbelly, a disorienting blur of cocaine and liquor that immediately signals a deeper crisis. This is not a film about the linear stages of grief; it is an immersive dive into the turbulent headspace of a man running from something far larger than loss.
It’s about facing the ghost of the person you were and the disquieting stranger you’ve become. The atmosphere is thick with a palpable anxiety, setting the stage for an intimate, and often painful, character study that is less about saying goodbye to a loved one and more about staring down one’s own reflection in a fractured mirror.
A City’s Reflection in a Shattered Mirror
So many films use Detroit as a convenient shorthand for post-industrial decay, a visual trope I’ve long grown tired of. This film wisely and refreshively sidesteps that cliché. The Detroit we are shown here is a complex, breathing entity defined by its jarring dualities.
Writer-director Qasim Basir’s camera captures the swooping cranes and gleaming glass facades of a downtown rebirth, symbols of a forward-looking, venture-capital-fueled optimism. These new structures, however, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the city’s grand Art Deco past and weathered residential blocks.
It reminds me of walking through cities like Lisbon, where every new, sleek cafe is built next to a building still bearing the beautiful, tiled scars of history. That visual conversation is powerful, and it’s the film’s most potent metaphor.
The city is in flux, and so is Muhammad. His stepfather’s profession was construction, the literal act of building and providing structure. Now, the city itself is undergoing a massive, contentious reconstruction, and Muhammad is tasked with a far more difficult act of rebuilding: deconstructing the fragile, successful persona he curated for Hollywood to find something authentic underneath.
He feels like a stranger in this remade city, alienated by a progress that feels disconnected from the streets he knew. The city’s identity crisis, torn between preservation and reinvention, is a direct reflection of his own, writ large on a steel-and-brick canvas.
The Fragile Facade of Making It
In his family’s eyes, Muhammad wears a heavy crown. He is the one who got out, the hometown hero whose Hollywood career they follow with a mixture of pride and vicarious aspiration. The film masterfully and patiently peels back this shimmering illusion to reveal a startlingly fragile reality.
His professional life, far from being secure, is precarious; his finances are strained to the breaking point, and we witness him having to make hushed, desperate calls to his agent for an advance just to maintain the facade of prosperity. The immense pressure of this performance is a constant, humming beneath every interaction. His addiction is therefore not portrayed as a glamorous vice but as a grim, necessary tool for coping.
It’s in his private moments of self-destruction that we see the true weight of his crown. The film offers a sharp, sensitive examination of the specific burdens placed on Black men, the cultural expectation to be an unwavering pillar for the family even when you are personally crumbling.
His emotional outburst, proclaiming “I am a MAN,” is not a statement of strength but a heartbreaking cry of entrapment, an admission that he feels he has no permission to be vulnerable. His only real point of connection comes from Asia, a woman who is also staring down her own mortality.
Their complex, philosophical conversations about what it means to truly live are the film’s soul. She is not a simple savior or love interest, but a challenging mirror who forces an intimacy he desperately avoids elsewhere.
The Language of Mood and Ambiguity
This film communicates in a visual and emotional language that feels closer to poetry than to conventional narrative prose. Qasim Basir’s direction is confident and specific, favoring atmosphere over direct exposition and crafting a dreamlike, fluid aesthetic that pulls you directly into Muhammad’s disoriented state of mind.
The cinematography is both intimate and stylish, employing shallow focus to isolate him in crowded rooms and using the neon glow of night to create a world that is at once alluring, lonely, and deeply unsettling.
This is a bold artistic choice, one that aligns the film with a rich tradition of character-driven independent cinema that trusts its audience to connect with a protagonist’s emotional journey rather than follow a checklist of plot points.
The narrative deliberately drifts and circles back on itself, leaving certain questions unanswered and motivations ambiguous. It’s a structure that will likely frustrate those seeking the tidy resolutions of a mainstream drama, but it feels entirely authentic to the messy, unresolved nature of its subject.
At the center of it all, Amin Joseph’s performance is the film’s unwavering anchor. He fully embodies both the external charisma that fools his family and the quiet, bone-deep desperation of a man falling apart. Aided by a mournful, recurring cello score that beautifully amplifies the film’s melancholic tone, the film’s lasting power is found in this deeply stylistic and sincere approach to its difficult themes.
To Live and Die and Live premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and received a limited theatrical release in early 2024, followed by its streaming debut on MUBI in May 2025. The movie is noted for its poetic narrative style and strong performances, particularly from Joseph and Omari Hardwick. It’s currently available to stream on MUBI in multiple territories.
Full Credits
Director: Qasim Basir
Writers: Qasim Basir
Producers and Executive Producers: Datari Turner, Tommy Oliver, Qasim Basir, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Codie Elaine Oliver, Stefan Bran, Kimisha Renee Thomas
Cast: Amin Joseph, Omari Hardwick, Cory Hardrict, Skye P. Marshall, Maryam Basir, Michael Hyatt, Jeremy Sisto, J. Alphonse Nicholson
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Allison Anderson
Editors: Oba Plummer
Composer: Om’Mas Keith
The Review
To Live and Die and Live
To Live and Die and Live is a powerful, poetic, and unflinching character study. It succeeds brilliantly as an atmospheric mood piece, anchored by a phenomenal lead performance from Amin Joseph and a keenly observant directorial eye. While its deliberately ambiguous and meditative pace may not resonate with all viewers, those willing to immerse themselves in its world will find a deeply moving and artistically rich film that lingers long after the credits roll. It’s a stunning portrait of a man, and a city, fighting to rebuild from the inside out.
PROS
- A deeply nuanced and compelling lead performance by Amin Joseph.
- Stunning, atmospheric cinematography that richly captures a modern Detroit.
- A sensitive and sharp exploration of grief, addiction, and masculinity.
- Confident, poetic direction from Qasim Basir.
CONS
- Its ambiguous, non-linear narrative may feel slow or inaccessible to some.
- A tight focus on the protagonist leaves some supporting characters feeling underdeveloped.
