Selma Review

Hello :-)

Another awards season, another few months of people saying that the Oscars don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. At best the Academy are accused of being a bit elitist, at worse downright racist and at the centre of this year’s argument is the exclusion of David Oyelowo from the Best Actor category for his performance in Selma.

Selma is a dramatic retelling of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches as part of the civil rights movement. Following a meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson ) in which he is denied his request for federal legislation around the voting rights of black citizens, Martin Luther King Jr (David Oyelowo) heads to Selma with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to stage a number of peaceful protests and marches to help bring about change.

To add my 10 pence worth to the ongoing Oscars argument, I think it’s a crying shame that David Oyelowo and Ava DuVernay aren’t getting recognition from the Academy. Selma is a great piece of work in which they are the lynchpins.

What I found most surprising is the focus on the tactics behind the cause and the ever-present politics. In one scene movement’s organisers try to drill down into the core of the problem of voting for black residents of Selma. It’s rare to find something that dissects big problems in that way rather than just pointing at it and telling you how horrible it is. Those scenes also underline exactly how many levels of bullshit these people had to deal with which I hope younger audiences find as illuminating as I did.

So much of Selma is tied up in David Oyelowo’s remarkable performance it’s almost impossible to try and imagine the film without him. Instead of presenting us with a flawless image of an icon, Oyelowo shows us the man behind the mythos. In Selma King is flawed, plagued by doubt and fatigue but still understands the gravity of the cause and his pivitol role within it. He inhabits the character rather than giving an  impersonation; in particular the tone and cadence of his voice is hypnotic.

King may be front and centre of the action but Selma is an ensemble story and the cast of characters around Oyelowo acquit themselves very well. Carmen Ejogo shines as Coretta Scott King. She imbues her character with such grace and strength but also the duality of her relationship with her husband, both understanding the importance of his work and resentful of his unfaithfulness and time away from his family. Trai Byers and Stephan James play the SNCC members James Forman and John Lewis who raise some interesting questions on the merits of grassroots activism versus wider media attention. There are many more excellent supporting performances but it’d be impossible to put it into a coherent review without it turning into an IMDB cast list.

Other cast members, I’m not so sold on. Tom Wilkinson’s LBJ never really convinces, neither do Tim Roth as Governor George Wallace or Dylan Baker as J. Edgar Hoover. Roth plays Wallace like a 1920’s moustache twirling villain rather than a convincing bigot and the conversation between LBJ and Hoover about plans to set surveillance on King and his family comes off as cringey rather than ominous. 

Ava DuVernay shows some real talent here, the scene with the initial march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge is nothing short of masterful and she injects some real fire into the speech scenes which, in lesser hands, could have come off as a bit po-faced. Her obvious confidence underpins the whole picture which is something you really need if you’re taking on a subject as emotionally loaded as the civil rights movement.

As uplifting as this story is there is an overarching feeling of melancholy when you put it in a present day context. I defy anyone not to watch this and think of the recent unrest in Ferguson (something that’s referenced in Selma’s Oscar nominated song Glory) and that’s one of the film’s biggest strengths. It doesn’t shy away from reminding us “of the fierce urgency of Now”.

It would take a cold soul to watch Selma and not be moved. It takes us into the nitty gritty of affecting change and the brutal treatment of those who tried. Despite some forgivable flaws the film is gracefully aided by the strength of it’s central performance and sterling direction throughout.  Timely and timeless, Selma is essential viewing.

Selma is out in the UK this Friday.

Right, let’s have some…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)

Superbowl Trailer Special! (FYI there were LOADS of trailers from the recent Superbowl, there are just my favourite)

1. Tomorrowland, got a new trailer, a whole 32 seconds of it… It looks fantastically crackers and interestingly, we still don’t know that much about the actual story. Eevn so, I’m willing to give anything a chance if it’s come from the creator of The Iron Giant.  Tomorrowland comes out on 22^nd May :-)

2. There was a new trailer for Jurassic World! I’m so looking forward to this, I know it has it’s detractors and they have perfectly valid reasons for their skeptisism but the sight of Chris Pratt training Velociraptors (something we all suspected but this trailer seems to confirm) is just ridiculously exciting to me.  The park will open on 12^th June :-)

3. And finally there was a trailer for Pitch Perfect 2! I went through a phase of watching Pitch Perfect once a week so you’d be correct in assuming I was excited about it’s sequel. Pitch Perfect 2 is out on 15^th May.

That’s all for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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