Although
I haven’t read the YA book this movie is based on, I still knew I wanted to see
it when it hit theaters. It’s a film
that takes its heavy subject matter very seriously, but while there are moments
where its message overpowers its story, this is by and large a well-made movie
that packs a major punch.
Starr is
a girl caught between worlds: the
mostly-Black working-class neighborhood she calls home and the mostly-white
private school in which she spends her days.
She’s cultivated a careful regiment of codeswitching, maintaining two
separate demeanors for her two separate worlds, but the different sides of her
collide when a tragedy in one world spills over into the other. Starr’s friend Khalil is killed by a police
officer during a traffic stop, and Starr is the only witness. She wrestles with whether or not to speak up,
facing immense pressure both externally, as the head of the local gang
threatens her against talking to the cops, and internally, as she considers the
possibility of all her school friends seeing her on the news and reframing her
as the poor Black girl whose friend was shot.
There are
a lot of neat things going on in this movie.
Right from the start, Starr’s inner conflict is massive, always feeling
she has to be a specific person to match her environment rather than just being
who she is regardless of where she is. I love the thread of the way her white
friends talk “ghetto” to sound cool, whereas she knows that, if she spoke that
way in front of them, she wouldn’t be viewed the same way. I also like the specifics of how the shooting
goes down – Khalil isn’t a “perfect victim,” but that in no way lessens the
injustice of what happens to him – and the complexities that arise in the
aftermath. The way Starr doesn’t want
any of her friends to even know she knew Khalil, let alone that she was with
him when he died, just kills me. Sure,
part of it is down to her fears about how they’d perceive her, but it’s also in
part because of their reactions to the shooting as a news story. Watching these scenes, I was struck by a
similarity with A Single Man, in
which George doesn’t tell his neighbors about Jim’s death because he knows
that, deep down, they genuinely won’t care.
This is
definitely a film that speechifies, and there are a few places where the
characters stop feeling like characters and start feeling like mouthpieces, but
overall, the message feels well-integrated into the movie. For me, as someone who’s been deeply saddened
by news of police shootings but has never been personally affected by such a
horrific thing, it’s important to sit in some of these moments – the statements,
the memorials, the protests – and feel them as the characters experience them.
The
strong cast does fine work across the board.
As Starr, Amandla Stenberg carries the film on their shoulders (Rue’s
all grown up!) They ably balance Starr’s
grief, fear, anger, and uncertainty as she faces the devastation of this
experience. The film also features the
likes of Regina Hall, Issa Rae, and Anthony Mackie (Falcon!), along with Archie
Andrews himself, K.J. Apa, as Starr’s well-meaning but out-of-touch boyfriend. And, although I’m not very familiar with his other
work, shoutout to Algee Smith for his terrific performance as Khalil. Even though he’s only in the film for a short
time, Smith makes Khalil’s connection with Starr immediately jump off the screen,
and in his hands, Khalil is always a character rather than a faceless victim.
Warnings
Strong
thematic elements, violence, swearing, drinking/smoking/drug references, and
sexual references.
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