Selma (2014, PG-13)

Selma is unusual in that it’s nominated for best picture and only one other award, best original song.  It’s as if voters felt they couldn’t not nominate a film centering around Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, but at the same time, they didn’t want to give it more than a token nod.  I don’t know why that is.  Did they think an MLK picture was too obviously Oscar bait?  Were they put off by the controversy over the dramatic licenses the film takes (not that Selma is alone in that, of course)?  Did they feel they did their duty, black-history-wise, with 12 Years a Slave last year?

Whatever the reason, it’s a shame, because it’s a pretty excellent film.  All three best picture nominees I’ve seen so far have been true stories, and this one has the tightest focus.  Rather than trying to cover the whole civil rights movement or large swathes of King’s life, it only examines the SCLC’s time demonstrating for voting rights in Selma, Alabama, culminating in the march from Selma to Montgomery.  It doesn’t shy away from the violence and hatred of the era, directed towards black would-be voters and demonstrators as well as white allies, and it also shows the conflicts within the movement itself.

I really like that – the film allows King to be a great man, a courageous, impassioned, historically vital man, without deifying him.  Most prominently, we see the friction between SNCC, the activist group doing grassroots work in Selma at the start of the film, and King’s SCLC.  In the eyes of SNCC, the SCLC rolls into a town, stirs up a lot of trouble and attention, takes credit if things go well, and then leaves everyone else to deal with any fallout from their actions.  On the subject of King, SNCC’s leaders are divided as to whether he’s a visionary leader or a headline-chasing glory hound.  King himself pushes on in his attempts to shake white lawmakers out of their complacency and stop ignoring the issue of equal voting rights, but while his conviction in his cause is unwavering, his belief in his own involvement isn’t so solid.  We see his moments of doubt, his fears about the danger he’s subjected his family to, and his arguments with those who don’t understand his methods.  It’s a complex, nuanced depiction; the story explores these falters and uncertainties, but they only serve to humanize King and his mission without diminishing his strength of character.  David Oyelowo’s performance is more than up to the task of matching the powerful storytelling.

The film features a handful of familiar faces:  Oprah, Tom Wilkinson, Giovanni Ribisi, Tessa Thompson (Jackie from Veronica Mars), Lorraine Toussaint (Vee from Orange is the New Black), Dylan Baker (William Cross from Kings), Tim Roth, Stephen Root, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Alessandro Nivola (who I know best as Henry Crawford in the Frances O’Connor Mansfield Park.)  I also want to single out Henry G. Sanders as an elderly man still fighting for his right to vote, as well as Nigel Thatch for his very good, if brief, appearance as Malcolm X.

Warnings

Harsh violence (not as graphic as a lot of movies, but highly affecting,) language, brief sexual content, and strong thematic elements.