Getting ‘The Talk’
Powerful new film explores police brutality against black communities
A confession: Much as I love turning movie titles into acronyms — Dawn of the Planet of the Apes = DOT-POTA, and don’t get me started on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow — I did not realize the title The Hate U Give is the first half of rapper Tupac’s Thug Life — The Hate U Give Little Infants F---s Everyone.
So maybe the film is not directed at aging white critics. But if this one can be moved almost to tears by the story of a resilient black American teenager facing a world of prejudice, sexism and violence, then director George Tillman Jr. (Faster, Notorious) has crafted a story that will speak to anyone willing to listen.
The film features an Oscar-worthy performance by 19-year-old Amandla Stenberg as Starr Carter, growing up in the fictional, mostly black neighbourhood of Garden Heights, and attending a mostly white school that might as well be on another planet.
Streetwise, but also just plain wise, Starr has learned how to compartmentalize the
THE HATE U GIVE
Grade: ATheatres, showtimes, pages 32-33
two sides of her life, even down to her vocabulary.
For her classmates, she notes, “Slang makes them cool; slang makes me ’hood.”
She’s helped in her balancing act by her dad (Russell Hornsby), seen in the first scene giving Starr and her siblings The Talk. Nope, not that talk; he wants his kids to know their rights, but also to know how to react (or not) when confronted by police. Unfortunately, her childhood friend Khalil (Algee Smith) doesn’t play by those rules, setting up a tragedy that then dominoes into a world of consequences for the young woman.
The Hate U Give is based on the young-adult novel by Angie Thomas and adapted by Audrey Wells, a filmmaker who died of cancer just before the movie opened. It’s not a perfect film — Starr’s internal
monologue gets a bit tiring, especially when the actor can express volumes with a twitch of her face. And a few characters seem underwritten, not least Regina Hall as Starr’s mom. Plus the final scene feels too tidy given the harrowing two-plus hours we’ve just lived through.
But these are minor quibbles compared to the power of the narrative. Standouts include Common as Starr’s uncle, a black police officer who admits to racial profiling; and K.J. Apa as her boyfriend, whose understanding of the racial divide between them straddles an endearing line between knowledge and naiveté and provides a few moments of comic relief, not least when he is mistaken for a chauffeur on prom night.
The mood of the film swings between despair and hope, as does the performance of its star. You wonder when she’s going to break, and what that will mean. I said Stenberg can say so much with a twitch. But you can’t just twitch forever.