There aren’t tonnes of films right now trying to get to grips with racism, teen angst, white liberal hypocrisy, sexual prejudice and the rise of victim culture. So it’s horrible to report that this adaptation of JC Lee’s play by Julius Onah is a glib mess.
Right at the start, US high school all-rounder Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr; wonderful) delivers a speech in which he thanks the white couple (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) who adopted him, age seven, “saving” him from life as an Eritrean child soldier.
What follows concerns Luce’s war of attrition with his black history teacher, Miss Wilson (Octavia Spencer; amazing, as ever).
The flashpoint is an essay by Luce in which he adopts the voice of anti-colonial polemicist Frantz Fanon, presented here as an obscure firebrand. Actually, Fanon is a lauded figure who’s been taught at universities for years. It’s the first of a gazillion details that feel “off”.
Compare Luce to a breezy gem like Get Out and it’s obvious that Onah’s treatise needs a radical rewrite.
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