The Hate U Give

— I’ve seen my share of films thematically linked to the Black Lives Matter movement and, from my perspective, whether fiction and documentary, most have communicated an anger and righteousness without encouraging much understanding. “The Hate U Give” is different. 16-year-old Starr lives in a black neighborhood but her parents have sent her to a mostly white, privileged high school in an affluent part of town. To fit in, she has adopted two distinct personalities, one for her white high school crowd and the other for her neighborhood friends. When she leaves a party one night with a long-time friend and a policemen stops their car, Starr does everything her father had coached to do if ever stopped but her friend doesn’t and, reaching for his hairbrush, the policeman thinks he’s going for a gun and shoots him. As the only witness to his death, Starr’s ability to put on two separate faces becomes more difficult until, eventually, she becomes her own person. “The Hate U Give” is based on a young adult novel, and it personalizes the story, pulling viewers into Starr’s life and managing to actually give viewers a sense of her journey from striving to fit in to speaking out, from living on the edge to tackling the problem. In the process, privileged, white viewers like me really do get a better sense of what’s going on, but with the anger and frustration directed more at the fact we’ve all ended up at this place. Instead of focusing on blame, viewers can focus on affecting a change. Amandla Stenberg is fantastic and, while the film doesn’t look at every injustice or the full history of institutional racism, it does what films do best and provides a way for viewers to step into the environment, not just view it from afar.

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[2018. 133 min. Directed by George Tillman Jr. Starring Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, and Anthony Mackie.]
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/movies/the-hate-u-give-review-amandla-stenberg.html