Excellent character development makes you understand this film is more than about a police shooting. It’s about survival. This is a movie for all ages even though it’s based on a book for young adults. Director George Tillman, Jr. (The Longest Ride, Barber Shop movies, Notorious, TV’s Soul Food series) presents a chilling scene right from the start showing African – American parents having “the talk” with their kids. This has nothing to do with sex. It’s all about how to stay alive. It’s taken directly from the book by Angie Thomas.
Tillman told us at the Chicago International Film Festival that screenwriter Audrey Wells suggesting moving the scene up from the middle of the book, and it sets the tone well. Father, former gang member and ex-con, Mav (Russell Hornsby), is drilling his 9-year-old daughter, Starr, along with his other kids, to put hands up like on a table if ever stopped by police so as not to ask for any trouble. He also drills them on the Black Panther 10 point program which includes “Know Your rights.”
Amandla Stenberg is a standout in this film as Starr Carter. At just 19, Stenberg is emerging as a new face of a thoughtful, activist actor. Tillman takes this stunning, smart young girl and let’s us see her find her voice in the face of mortal danger from both the white and black sides.
She plays the teen from Garden Heights who lives between two worlds. “Starr version one” travels from her Black neighborhood to become “Starr version two,” going to a predominantly white upscale school in Williamson. Starr has to deal with a lot in her young life. She’s outspoken, talking slang with her friends in the Hood, who then has to lose that vernacular, be more gentile and dress differently at school to fit in with the white crowd. It’s called code switching which Amandla admitted she has done in her own life. In the film, Starr has a boyfriend who really cares and accepts her, but, in the movie, she’s even tentative about that.
Director Tillman, Jr. was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. He gets the trappings of both worlds right while staying away from stereotypes. Mav is now a family man with a job. His wife is a medical technician who is doing everything she can to help her kids stay safe. At 10 years old, Starr saw witnessed her best friend, Natasha, shot, but kept it under wraps. No snitching. But a few years later, Starr has to grow up fast when she is with her other best friend from childhood, Khalil (Algee Smith) when they’re pulled over for a minor traffic violation and the police officer thinks he was reaching for a weapon. One minute they’re talking about how they used to play Harry Potter, the next, he is dead.
Amandla told us at the Festival that reacting in the shooting scene was not as hard as those when she is interrogated by police. She plays shook, scared and numb in a performance that is completely real and intense.
Then Starr has to deal with the struggle where her parents, Mav and Lisa (Regina Hall), disagree whether about whether she should testify at the before the Grand Jury. Starr has to grow up in this moment of decision to put everything on the line and speak out for her dead friend or stay safe. Common plays her uncle and a police officer trying to help guide the family through this crisis. He’s getting to be a better actor as he acts in more films. Anthony Mackie plays local drug dealer King, a former friend of Starr’s Dad, Mav.
Tillman shows the how the tide turns with the protest in the streets with Starr speaking out. The protest becomes violent and frightening for Starr and for the audience. It brings into sharp focus what society is dealing with today. The Black Lives Matter movement inspired Tillman to take on the material and he does a good job showing all sides.
The title of the film comes from the first letter of Tupac Shakur’s term “Thug Life” for the cycle of violence we’re seeing, which represents, “The Hate U Give Little Infants Effs Everybody.” The music represents issues presented in the film, from Tupac, Kendrick Lamar, Arlissa Session’s “We Won’t Move,” and Bobby Sessions who does the title track, “The Hate U Give.”
This film is a statement on race, standing up for yourself, but also covers family, community relations, gang violence, drugs, snitching and code switching, safety, education, economic inequality, and even politics. It’s long, but doesn’t feel it. Tillman has done a good job letting the audience get to know and like these characters. Amandla Stenberg is a force to be reckoned with as she finds her voice playing Starr with real and raw emotion. Audiences should give a lot of love to “The Hate U Give.”
Twentieth Century Fox 2 hours 13 minutes PG-13
