A good movie

Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this flick and since it was suggested by a fellow Listal member, I was quite eager to check it out. First of all, you can’t deny that this movie was quite prescient as it was released more than a year before George Floyd was killed by a white police officer and the Black Live Matters became afterwards a worldwide phenomenon. However, you might argue that such tragic events are unfortunately rather common for the black folks living in the US. On top of that, the cast was also really strong, especially Amandla Stenberg who was pretty much pitch-perfect through the whole thing and she will definitely be someone to follow in the future. And, yet, something was still missing to make this movie really amazing though. I guess it might have to do with a lack of complexity in the characters. Indeed, one of the most intriguing aspect displayed in this movie was the duality of the main character, the fact that she had to adapt herself and constantly switch between 2 vastly different worlds, but this duality basically went out of the window from the moment Khalil was killed. However, this lack of character complexity above all applied to the other characters though. It’s not that they were not interesting or not convincing, in the contrary, it’s more that they were given a label right from the start and then never did deviate from this label. Basically, you had the beautiful loving and inspiring parents, the rather clueless but still sweet boyfriend, the clueless but not so sweet (girl)friend, the ruthless drug dealer,… Once again, it’s not that these characters were lame, it’s more that they never really evolved or did anything really unexpected. Anyway, to conclude, all in all, it was still a really good drama though, completely timely and topical, and it is definitely worth a look.