2. Till; movie review

 

TILL

Cert 12A

130 mins

BBFC advice: Contains racism, disturbing images, upsetting scenes, moderate threat

That was jaw-dropping. If anyone other than Danielle Deadwyler picks up this year's best actress Oscar, theirs will have to be a hell of a performance.

Deadwyler moved me to the cusp of tears with her astonishing portrayal of Marmie Till-Bradley, the mother of a 14-year-old boy (Jalyn Hall) murdered by racists in Mississippi.

It was as if she reached out to me personally as a parent and demanded to know how I would feel if my child had been beaten to death and chucked in a river.

Emmett Till's killing became key in the fight for civil rights in the United States in the 1950s.

Chinonye Chukwu's film is a faithful retelling from his mother's initial fears about him leaving their Chicago home to visit his cousins to her fight for justice for Emmett.

Hall plays the happy teenager who struggles to comprehend the dangers of going to the south.

The horrors meted out to such an innocent remain no less shocking with the passing of nearly 68 years. 

Till sees the boy's murder almost entirely through the eyes of his mother who courageously shines a light on the shameless racism in Mississippi.

This was a time of effective apartheid in the southern States when whites knew that they would never be prosecuted for violence against African Americans.

Their actions go a long way to explaining the power that white supremacists still hold in America. After all, these events are so comparatively recent that one of the key players is still alive.

Anyway, politics and the media come to the fore in the battle for equality and Marmie does not hold back in using both and any extreme tactics she sees fit.

Sean Patrick Thomas, Whoopi Goldberg and Frankie Faison are among the key supporting cast but this is Deadwyler's film.

I have yet to see Cate Blanchett in Tár. If she is better than this, she will be really something.

And I may have just watched one of the films of 2023 on its first day.

Reasons to watch: Shattering true story

Reasons to avoid: Upsetting

Laughs: None

Jumps; None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 9.5/10

Did you know?  In March of 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law, making lynching a federal hate crime. 

The final word. Chinonye Chukwu: "Black women are so often erased in society at large, particularly in history and our contributions presently, in terms of the civil rights movement and the freedom movement. That got me excited about digging in and contextualising the story in that way." EW.com

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