Caught between worlds
How director George Tillman Jr divided timely drama The Hate U Give into two distinct halves
THE OPENING PAGES of The Hate U Give, the debut novel by Angie Thomas, describe an African-american girl named Starr struggling over which side of her identity to present at a party — her black side or her white side. “There are just some places where it’s not enough to be me,” her narration reads. “Either version of me.” Filmmaker George Tillman Jr was working on Season 1 of Luke Cage when he was given an early manuscript of the book and immediately related to her experience.
“She has two worlds,” Tillman Jr explains. “She goes back and forth. It’s about a woman who was code-switching — how African-americans change their behaviour and how they act around white individuals. This is something we haven’t really seen in film before.”
Sensing something significant, Tillman Jr quickly began the process of adapting for cinema, pitching it to Fox before the book had even been published (it later became a literary phenomenon, particularly among young readers). Just as Starr finds herself caught between the mostly white school she attends and the black neighbourhood she grows up in, so the book and film depict two distinct stories, pivoting around a traumatic event which sees Starr’s friend gunned down by police; what begins as an everyday high school drama morphs into a story of activism and resistance.
Each half of the film, Tillman Jr says, has its own tone and aesthetic. “[The high school portion of the film] has its own energy, its own behaviour, its own beats and cinematic styles, while [the activist portion] has its own cinematic style entirely.” Tillman Jr hired two editors to work on the film simultaneously, and at one point considered assigning an editor to each half, such was the difference between the two parts.
The film addresses both violent and subtle forms of racism — and bigotry even infected the production of the film itself, in the unexpected form of life imitating
art, when actor Kian Lawley (who played Starr’s white boyfriend) was fired after being found using racial epithets. “It was the worst thing that could have ever happened,” sighs Tillman Jr, “but the best thing for the movie.” Despite filming having finished, the role was recast with KJ Apa, and a hasty week of reshoots was assembled. “It was a drag that we had to do that — there were so many emotions we had to go back into — but I think the performances were even better.”
Keeping the focus on Starr, Tillman Jr says, will help all audiences respond to an important, timely story. “Everything has to be seen through her eyes,” he says, “to give the audience empathy on what it’s like to experience racism, or have a cop pull you over. Authenticity is what transcends race and class.” If this film is successful, it could transcend a lot more besides.
THE HATE U GIVE IS IN CINEMAS FROM 2 NOVEMBER