This powerful story about an African-American teenager who witnesses her black friend killed by a white cop should be required viewing for anyone with white privilege. As our heroine Starr, whose compartmentalizing of her poor black neighborhood and her wealthy white prep school is challenged by the tragedy, Amandla Stenberg (just turned 20 and has been acting for eight years) is fabulous, and so are Regina Hall and Russell Hornsby (last blogged for Girls Trip and Fences, respectively) as her parents Lisa and Maverick. Also putting in good performances are Anthony Mackie (most recently in these pages for Avengers: Infinity War) as a scary guy named King, comedian Issa Rae (I've liked all 24 episodes of Insecure) as an activist lawyer, and Common (after Selma I saw him in his three episodes of The Chi) as Uncle Carlos. Over 150 cast members are listed on imdb but that's all you're getting from me now.
Director George Tillman Jr. (helmed Notorious and some others I didn't see) works from a script by Audrey Wells (I really liked The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), and Shall We Dance (2004), all very different in tone from this project), who skillfully adapted Angie Thomas' 2017 young adult novel.
The original score by Dustin O'Halloran (last composed for Puzzle) can be streamed on spotify or on youtube with commercials (after the 20th track the youtube playlist moves to other topics). There are also plenty of songs, listed here.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics are as rhapsodic as we are, averaging 97%, while its audiences, at 75, need to hate a little less.
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