Honest, thoughtful cinema.
At first glance this film feels like a bog-standard Hollywood biopic depicting racial inequality and the systemic problems with our justice system. But an excellent performance from Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson the main character and author of the book this film is based on anchors the film in moments of quiet reflection. This goes for Jamie Fox’s performance of Walter McMillian as well, a man who has been beaten down by the system to the point where he’s lost all hope. This film does an excellent job of addressing a key, often understated element of systemic oppression, exhaustion, everyone that Bryan Stevenson meets in this film is exhausted from dealing with this blatantly racist system that holds them hostage everyday of their lives. They’re rightly suspicious of Stevenson for promising to move mountains when he arrives fresh faced from Harvard prepared to do good deeds. The film explores this disparity carefully, reserving its condemnation for the system itself above all else, exploring that the people involved in this system of any color can offer some level of resistance to it and often do when they realize what it does to people.
This being a film about racial injustice, there’s some degree of schmaltz that’s par for the course, but I didn’t feel as though it was gratuitous. The film is self-aware, and despite the emotional nature of the material I was moved most by the quiet moments where the film at it’s most restrained offers the viewer solace in shared humanity with these people we’re witnessing go through hell. There’s a poetry to the story told here as the characters refrain from flowery speeches but speak frankly to each other about their fears, the film allows it characters to be vulnerable to be hurt by this system. There is no invulnerable hero lawyer that defeats all evils with a wave of his briefcase. Yes, in many ways it’s conventional storytelling, but there’s no single speech that wins the day, no Hollywood grandstanding. This film is about putting in the work, and losing battles, and feeling beaten, and pressing on anyway. The commitment to accurately depicting the events adds to this sense of authenticity. It may be a bit tired to refer to a film as genuine, but in an industry where make believe is the default, the director's choice to avoid candy coating this story with inane aphorisms and glitzy spectacle, deserves praise.
8/10 Atticus Finch was fiction, Bryan Stevenson is the real thing.