At its closest parallels to Ferguson, director George Tillman Jr.’s “The Hate U Give” is a dramatization of nonstop, boiled down sizzle clips by national media that descended on the unassuming St. Louis county municipality as the community responded to the death of unarmed teen Michael Brown.
The panoramic shots leading to the culmination of righteous anger as residents of the fictional Garden Heights take to the streets in protest, bear an uncanny resemblance to downtown Ferguson. Even some of the police cars appear inspired by the St. Louis County standard vehicles.
Not much else about the film adaptation of the bestselling young adult fiction novel of the same name by Angie Thomas echoes the movement that captured the world’s attention – and is still impacting the St. Louis region more than four years later. A series of irresponsible dramatic liberties by screenwriter Audrey Wells stifles the film’s potential of providing a springboard for necessary conversations on race and the reality of police violence against people of color. By playing up negative stereotypes and false narratives, “The Hate U Give” falls short of its intention to be a teachable cinematic moment.
Starr Carter is a young black girl forced to walk a tightrope between two worlds. As she narrates her experience, she tells the story of Garden Heights Starr – where she was born and raised – and Williamson Prep Starr, who has mastered the art of code-switching at her nearly all-white private school. Starr has a strong family unit, but her functional two-parent home life, that successfully manages a complicated blended family-dynamic, is the exception to other households in her community.
Starr can’t truly be herself around her classmates, and she is out of place while navigating the social ills of the ‘hood (that the film plays to the absolute max) when she’s in her own element. In one of those tense moments, Starr reconnects with her childhood friend Khalil. He hips her to Tupac’s hidden meaning behind “T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E.” The Hate U Give Little Infants [expletive] Everybody. As he prepares to give her a ride home, they are pulled over by the police. As the opening scene of the film illustrates, Starr is well-trained by her family on the procedures to follow when interacting with law enforcement. Khalil did not have those lessons – and the consequence of his lack of awareness while in the situation is nothing short of tragic.
The film’s title focuses on the word “thug,” which in a sense became the new n-word in the wake of Michael Brown. The word was often used to describe Brown – and several other young black men fatally shot by law enforcement. Their families had to suffer through their loved one’s character assassination on top of the tragic and untimely physical deaths. The film adds fuel the “thug” label often imposed upon young men in urban areas, by way of the victim of the police shooting and by the gang that manages the criminal element of Garden Heights.
The script fails a well-acted, well-directed effort. The pace and precision during the inciting incident, which shapes the story and the moment where Starr attempts to make her private school classmate understand the dynamic of how black people are policed in her neighborhood, are particular triumphs for Tillman.
And the performances will make even the viewers who don’t agree with the type of story they are watching unfold connect with the film – especially Amandla Stenberg’s take on Starr and Algee Smith’s Khalil. Regina Hall gives a noteworthy performance as the Carter family matriarch in her most serious and substantial role to date. The film also stars Russell Hornsby, Anthony Mackie, Common and Issa Rae.
Because of his character’s fate, his screen time is brief. But viewers will be haunted by the irresistible charm that Smith pours onto Khalil and the natural chemistry between him and Stenberg. His effortlessly authentic portrayal will compel viewers to grieve for him like they did the countless others whose names went on to become hashtags in real life.
The Hate U Give opens in theatres nationwide on Friday, October 19. The film is rated PG-13 with a running time of 132 minutes.
