Frat party fiasco goes from satire to terror
“It’s not what it looks like” is both the marketing tagline for “Emergency” and an accurate description of this ingenious independent film.
The opening night feature at January’s Sundance Film Festival and deserving winner of its Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, “Emergency” first appears to be a college party comedy with social commentary. Relentless unease soon takes over, though, then palpable terror. There’s also absurd yet totally credible satire of cultural attitudes — from the latest in unexamined prejudices to the confusing speech codes designed to redress them — and an exploration of friendship that’s always amusing yet dead serious at heart.
Expanded from their 2018 short film of the same name, director Carey Williams and screenwriter K.D. Dávila’s feature blends these and more clashing elements into a serpentine plot that never loses its way. “Emergency” opens at select theaters Friday, May 20, and starts streaming on Amazon Prime Video a week later.
Sean (RJ Cyler of “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”) and Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) are best friends about to graduate from the fictional Buchanan College. Sean is a streetwise stoner, and Kunle is the straitlaced son of African doctors. They josh each other about which one is more genuinely Black, but agree that they need to set a precedent on the inaugural night of spring break by becoming the first students of color to conquer the Legendary circuit, hitting all seven of the frat parties around town.
Complications arise when they stop by the house they share with nerdy Carlos (Sebastian Chacon) to find a blond woman passed out in the living room. The guys want to do the right thing but, America being America, know what three men of color standing over a maybe roofied white girl would look like to 911 responders. After much ethical and moral pondering, the three pack the puking princess into Sean’s minivan and attempt to reach a hospital as inconspicuously as possible.
Sobriety checkpoints, neighborhood watch Karens and drunk revelers create subsequent roadblocks. Little Emma — who’s played by Maddie Nichols in one of the all-time-great blitzed perforthe mances — stirs up more trouble in her sporadic moments of consciousness. Meanwhile, her frantic older sister Maddie (Sabrina Carpenter), along with more rational pal Alice (Madison Thompson) and a toga-clad frat bro (Diego Abraham), put down their beer cups and set off on their own wayward pursuit.
Funny, huh? Well, certainly clever enough, but except for a handful of laugh-out-loud gags — a visit to one of Sean’s relatives generates the best one — the humor here is more like, should I chuckle or cringe? Privileged Kunle, who’s correctly described as “Black excellence,” has no understanding of potentially deadly consequences his buddy is so paranoid about, and it strains their friendship as the night careens toward proving one of them right.
Dávila says some of “Emergency” was inspired by her Mexican American relatives’ assumptions that police are out to get them, so they adjust their behavior in public accordingly. She draws endless humor, tension and appropriate grief out of that single idea (and other good ones, too), which Williams turns into thematic glue for tones and tropes that don’t naturally mesh. An incisive portrait of Black male sensibilities is painted by the intense third act, while obtuseness evolves into understanding on most of the white characters’ parts.
While that may sound overwrought with Sundance indie sensitivity, “Emergency’s” actors keep it real. No matter what archetype they represent, each character has a nuanced, convincing life. That’s especially true of Sean and Kunle, and it’s why we don’t just want to see them survive the night; Cyler and Watkins make it so we need their friendship to come out intact.