Movie Review: Luce (2019)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Julius Onah  

Starring: Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Tim Roth  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: Black high school student Luce Edgar (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) was adopted as a child from war-torn Eritrea by his parents Amy and Peter (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth). He is now a model student, excelling in academics and athletics. Trouble starts brewing when his black teacher Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer) shares with Amy some concerns: Luce wrote an essay espousing violence, and Harriet found illegal fireworks in his locker. Amy and Peter disagree on how to confront Luce, who is also dealing with a buddy suspended from the track team and a girlfriend who may have been sexually assaulted.

What Works Well: The creeping all-is-not-well menace beneath an ideal middle class multi-racial suburban veneer energizes the adaptation of writer J.C. Lee's play. Four excellent performances feature actors exploring ambiguous realities, as Luce walks a fine line between perfect teenager and nefarious agenda, and teacher Harriet Wilson matches her student in navigating the grey zone between supporter, manipulator, and caregiver. Amy and Peter are parents caught in the middle, the sudden complexities in their adopted son's life exposing marriage fissures. Director Julius Onah succeeds in breaking out of any stage confines, while the sub-theme about the burden of striving for perfection within the black experience in America adds depth. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot tilts towards packing in too much drama and therefore trading in vagaries, leaving plenty of room for open-ended interpretations.

Key Quote:

Harriet: I can tell the difference between miscommunication and provocation.

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Movie Review: Ma (2019)

A suspense and horror thriller, Ma attempts an old/new twist on the teenagers-in-peril cliche. But the film meanders for too long in psychological damage territory before cramming incongruous violence into the final act.

After a divorce, Erica Thompson (Juliette Lewis) and her teenage daughter Maggie (Diana Silvers) move back to Erica's small Ohio hometown. She secures a job as a server at the local casino, while Maggie joins an easy-going group of high school buddies including the lively Haley (McKaley Miller) and dishy Andy (Corey Fogelmanis).

Looking for an adult to buy them alcohol, Maggie and her new friends meet Sue Ann (Octavia Spencer), a lonely veterinarian's assistant. Sue Ann recognizes the kids as the children of her classmates from her own dorky high school days, when she had a crush on Andy's father Ben (Luke Evans) but was mercilessly bullied. She embraces the nickname Ma and opens up her basement for the kids to party, while hiding a secret and plotting a dangerous revenge.

All the gory and icky horror moments explode onto the screen in the final 20 minutes, starting with Ma unceremoniously taking care of Ben's latest girlfriend before turning her attention to the fun-loving teenagers she has lured into her basement. Up until the maniacal climax, Ma lingers in rather undistinctive Hansel And Gretel territory by way of the Pied Piper, here the sinister adult enticing youngsters into the woods with the promise of alcohol-fuelled parties.

Director and co-writer Tate Taylor introduces Sue Ann's tragic high school story in snippets, the cruel bullying of an introverted Black young woman causing permanent damage and a pathetic yearning to belong undermined by a thirst for barbarous revenge. Another victim adds further intrigue, Sue Ann's impaired psyche translating to vile over-protection. All the pop-psychology is passable as far as horror movie root causes go, and Octavia Spencer works hard to sell the premise.

The teenaged victims-to-be are stock and interchangeable characters, the script's uninspired character definition wasting dedicated work by Diana Silvers and McKaley Miller to try and carve out identities. Juliette Lewis ramps up to a few mama bear moments, but the ending is rushed into an unsatisfying blur. Ma wants to party then kill, but never overcomes the awkwardness of an adult dancing to the wrong music.



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Movie Review: Instant Family (2018)

A comedy with dramatic elements, Instant Family explores the complexities of foster parenting through the story of one couple taking on all they can handle.

Married couple Pete and Ellie Wagner (Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne) flip houses for a living, and have delayed having children. They decide to become foster parents and go through the required screening courses, where they meet social workers Karen (Octavia Spencer) and Sharon (Tig Notaro). Although initially hopeful of fostering one young child, Pete and Ellie eventually take in 15 year old Lizzy Viara (Isabela Moner) and her two younger siblings Juan and Lita.

The three kids were raised in harrowing conditions with a drug addicted mother, now in prison. Isabela is surly and cold, unsure why a middle class white couple would take on the hassle of caring for three Hispanic kids. Juan is accident prone and Lita resorts to shrieking to get whatever she wants. Pete and Ellie do their best, but the road to learning instant parenting is bumpy. And once the children's mother finishes her sentence and cleans up, their challenges multiply.

Inspired by director and co-writer Sean Ander's real-life story of adopting three siblings, Instant Family is a sweet family-friendly comedy. The mix of laughs and serious incidents is well calibrated, and although the march towards a happy ending is assured, enough ups and downs happen along the way to maintain interest.

Moments of doubts, setbacks and accidents mix easily with cute silliness involving bathroom use, finding new routines and public temper tantrums. Pete and Ellie have to learn on the job what it means to support each other through the parenting obstacle course, all while under the judgmental gaze of the deeply sceptical Lizzy. She is mostly passing time until her mom is released and recovered enough to regain custody of the kids, and has no interest in establishing emotional connections with yet another set of temporary caregivers.

In addition to extending the film to close to two hours, Anders does overcook a few scenes in search of cheaper laughs. In the most egregious, Lizzy gets involved in a sexting debacle with a sleazy school janitor, leading Pete and Ellie to perpetrate two assaults within five minutes while abandoning Juan and Lita in the car, in a fine example of how not to parent.

In the middle of the learn-on-the-fly turmoil Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne make for an appealing pair, both quickly comfortable as a couple and leaning on their understated comic timing to project less-is-more humour. Isabela Moner excels as Lizzy and steals every scene she is in with a sassy performance of passive-aggressive teen angst justified by deep insecurities.

In support Tig Notaro and Octavia Spencer provide a social worker twist on good cop / bad cop, here Notaro's properly by-the-book version of fostering bounced off against Spencer's warts-and-all colour commentary about how it really works. Surviving an Instant Family requires deep-seated belief in the ideal, and imperfect navigation of the real.

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Movie Review: Fruitvale Station (2013)

A biographical drama inspired by real life events, Fruitvale Station tracks the final day of Oscar Grant III, the young black man shot dead by San Francisco transit police officers on New Year's Day 2009.

It's New Year's Eve, and in a suburb of San Francisco Oscar (Michael B. Jordan) is a 22-year old black man struggling to find his feet as an adult. He was recently fired from his job at the local supermarket, but kept that hidden from his long-time girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz), the mother of their young daughter Tatiana. Oscar dabbles in dealing drugs, which has landed him in prison in the past.

Nevertheless, Oscar is determined to do better. He has an honest conversation with Sophia, and helps plan a birthday celebration for his mother Wanda (Octavia Spencer). He has an opportunity to make money through a drug sale but walks away from it. He also maintains a warm relationship with his grandmother. Determined to enjoy the New Year's Eve fireworks celebration with friends, Oscar and Sophina head into town on the transit system, but tragedy awaits on the return trip.

The feature length debut of director Ryan Coogler, who also wrote the script, Fruitvale Station is a quiet revolution. Going behind the headlines of yet another police shooting of yet another black victim, the film reveals the humanity in every life. Before Oscar was senselessly killed by a police bullet he was a young African American man trying to straighten out his life, and he mattered to his daughter, his mother, his girlfriend, his grandmother and his friends.

The film is remarkable for its unremarkable yet nimble content. Coogler rounds out Oscar and his environment with a minimum of fuss and a series of efficient yet effective scenes, Michael B. Jordan an agile and sleek presence in the stark and featureless suburban milieu. Coogler drives home Oscar's identity within a smoothly understated narrative, based on real events but also including some fictional imaginings.

The film can be excused for portraying Oscar in the best possible light, but his faults are still on display. He was an ex-convict, a small-time drug dealer, often late to work when he had a job, possessed a temper, and a tendency to cheat on Sophina. He also cared deeply for his family and friends, talked about becoming a better man and accepting responsibility for his decisions, was clever and funny, and showed affection towards strangers. And at just 22 years old, he still had plenty of opportunities to turn the necessary corners, given the chance.

Instead he received a police bullet in his back while lying helplessly prone on the floor. Coogler starts the film with actual phone camera footage of the confrontation at the Fruitvale Station platform, and ends with an in-depth recreation, filmed at the same location. The speed with which inept Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officers allowed the situation to spiral out of their control is stunning, the officers missing every opportunity to de-escalate.

As demonstrated by Fruitvale Station, there was absolutely nothing exceptional about Oscar Grant's last day, except that it should have never been his last day.

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Movie Review: Snowpiercer (2013)

A dystopian science fiction thriller, Snowpiercer shimmers with the story of human conflict and survival in a frozen future.

In the near future, the release of an experimental chemical into the atmosphere to lower soaring temperatures due to climate change goes wrong. A new global ice age is immediately triggered and all life is exterminated. The only survivors are on-board Snowpiercer, a massive ark-like train designed for human survival by genius scientist Wilford (Ed Harris), who predicted the catastrophe. The train is powered by a perpetual motion engine and continuously circumnavigates Earth.

Seventeen years pass. The tail section of the train contains "undesirable" passengers who clambered onto the train uninvited, and are now living in deplorable and overcrowded conditions. They include Curtis (Chris Evans), his friend Edgar (Jamie Bell), their spiritual leader Gilliam (John Hurt) and Tanya (Octavia Spencer), the mother of a young child. They are kept alive with daily doses of disgusting protein bars distributed by armed guards who separate them from the elites at the front. The train's snotty leaders are represented by the insufferable Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton).

When the elites initiate the latest round of forcible child abductions from amongst the undesirables, Curtis, Edgar and Gilliam spark a violent uprising with the intention of storming the front cars and taking control of the train. To pry open the security gates the rebels will need to work with expert gate control designer Namgoong (Song Kang-ho) and his 17 year old daughter Yona (Go Ah-sung), who are both drug addicts.

The first English language film directed by South Korea's Bong Joon-ho (who also co-wrote the script), Snowpiercer is a stunning cinematic achievement. Mixing human drama with expertly crafted thriller elements and superlative action scenes, the film offers unrelenting entertainment based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige. The set-up is efficient and compelling. Curtis and his cohorts are introduced and framed as oppressed third class citizens of the train, fed-up with mistreatment and confinement. They each have a background and a story to tell, but collectively they are at the end of their rope and ready to risk everything to overthrow the current order.

Once the storm-the-train plot is set in motion, the action is incessant and drives forward in tandem with the rebels as they progress towards the front. Pitched battles are fought in confined quarters, tactical surprises are sprung and acts of heroism abound. The gore is kept to a manageable level, but there is no mistaking the intensity of this fight for control and dignity.

As the fate of the rebellion ebbs and flows in each successive cabin, the internal and external set designs offer a feast for the eyes and the mind. The ragtag rebels are suddenly exposed to the middle class cabins, including the water manufacturing plant, restaurant services (complete with sushi bar), children's school classes, an aquarium for harvesting seafood, and copious quantities of beef. They also unhappily stumble upon the source of their protein bars.

Meanwhile, as the unstoppable train streaks through the landscape, the glimpses of outside scenery are breathtaking. The Earth is reduced to one destroyed and uninhabitable ice field, the beauty of absolute frozen whiteness juxtaposed with the horrific absence of life.

Snowpiercer is an allegory for social structures and interdependencies, visiting the terrain of Animal Farm and 1984. Who gets to lead, who gets to be exploited, the symbolism of the all-powerful godlike leader and how the head and the tail interact - or not - for the greater good are familiar themes, but rarely has a film dealt better with eternal existential questions about the collective human condition.

Chris Evans find one his best career roles as reluctant rebel Curtis Everett. Evans gets to combine brains with brawn as Curtis steps up to the role of frontline leader, and he emerges as a bonafide circumspect protagonist. Tilda Swinton as the conniving Minister Mason is the other standout performer.

Curtis' disruptive actions open Snowpiercer's doors literally and figuratively, and as always, it's up to every individual member of a social order to choose which of the available doors to walk through, with consequences ranging from inspirational to disastrous.

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Movie Review: The Shape Of Water (2017)

An inter-species cold war romance, The Shape Of Water presents old ideas with the gloss of new packaging.

It's the early 1960s, the cold war is in full swing, and the space race is on. In Baltimore, Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is mute, lives alone, and works as a night shift janitor at a secretive government research facility. Elisa's only friends are next door neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins), a failed artist, and her crewmate Zelda (Octavia Spencer). The facility receives a mysterious aquatic creature (Doug Jones) referred to as "the asset", captured in the Amazonian jungle by the CIA's brutal Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon).

Elisa is inquisitive about the new acquisition, and starts secretly spending time near its tank. She finds the creature to be curious, capable of communicating and expressing emotions. But Strickland understands only the language of violence and torture, sees no value in the asset and recommends its destruction. A species-loving Russian spy who works at the facility as Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) is horrified, but his superiors are not supportive of intervening. Elisa decides to take matters into her own hands to try and save her new companion, but she will need help.

Directed by Guillermo del Toro, The Shape Of Water is an amalgamation of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Free Willy, repackaged for adults with a thicker layer of eroticism and social commentary. The film's set designs, dark mood, and overwhelming green-blue palette are captivating. The predominantly nighttime setting in a cavernous nondescript government facility echoes with bureaucratic menace. And Sally Hawkins contributes a phenomenal performance as a lowly janitor determined to find love and carving her place in the world using sign language to express every complex emotion.

The familiar theme of humanity shining strong and true in individuals who are superficially different and disadvantaged permeates through The Shape Of Water, and indeed is applied with a subtlety of a sledgehammer. Elisa is mute, the creature is half man, half fish, Giles carries his own secret, Zelda is black, and Hoffstetler is Russian. The heroes of this story suffer through society's discriminatory attitudes as they risk everything to fearlessly fight the establishment.

And the status quo is not unexpectedly represented by the white Strickland, a member of the military industrial complex spouting Biblical fury and by far the most irrational and dangerous character on display. del Toro displays no control over his villain: Strickland foams at the mouth and acts irrationally for most of the movie, carrying a cattle prod to poke away at his enemies, and everyone is his enemy.

The film's other prevailing concept is acceptance of love's magical strength in all relationships, and here The Shape Of Water pushes into some unique territory. Elisa and the sinewy, muscular amphibian humanoid develop a deep and unconstrained bond. del Toro borrows from both King Kong and The Creature From The Black Lagoon as the monster combines danger with intriguing sexuality, and the film waltzes through its premise on a passionate edge where genuine affection, controversy, comic relief and undiscovered powers come together.

A fantasy romance agitating for debate, The Shape Of Water is nevertheless overly familiar at its essence.

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Movie Review: Gifted (2017)

A low-key thought-provoking drama, Gifted presents a difficult social dilemma and explores it with requisite tenderness and some cutting humour.

In Central Florida, Frank Adler (Chris Evans) lives in a trailer park and repairs boats while trying to give his seven year old niece Mary (Mckenna Grace) a normal upbringing. Frank's sister and Mary's mother, a math prodigy, committed suicide and left Mary in Frank's care. Frank and Mary's closest friend is their pragmatic and outspoken neighbour Roberta (Octavia Spencer). Once Mary starts attending school, her own superlative math skills are quickly noticed by Grade 1 teacher Bonnie Stevenson (Jenny Slate).

Frank and Bonnie start a romantic relationship, but he rejects all attempts to enroll Mary in a school for gifted children, insisting that she should be treated like any normal kid. But Frank's wealthy mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) has other ideas. After a long period of estrangement she shows up from her privileged Massachusetts life and insists that her granddaughter be given every opportunity to fulfill her potential. Frank resists, triggering a custody battle.

Directed by Marc Webb, Gifted possesses surprising natural warmth. Thanks to a stellar Tom Flynn script and excellent performances from Chris Evans and 10 year old Mckenna Grace, the film radiates a genuine glow, where family relationships matter, adults and kids behave as they should, and even in the heat of a court battle, civility is maintained.

While the icy cold Evelyn is the closest thing to a villain, Flynn and Webb make sure to give her time and space to put forward her case. Evelyn herself was a math genius, her career interrupted by domestic duties and the expectations of a different era. Now she wants to ensure Mary is given the financial support and environment to reach her obviously tremendous potential, and it's difficult to argue with her intentions.

Standing on the other side is a seemingly rock solid relationship between uncle and niece, the dynamics between Frank and Mary captured with exquisite honesty. Mary may be brilliant at math but she is still a kid and behaves as such, while Frank was dropped into a parental role he never anticipated. The bond between them is formidable, captured with stunning grace in a quite breathtaking silhouette scene against a setting sun with Mary playfully climbing all over Frank - her literal life anchor.

The film sets up its central conflict of who gets to decide what is best for a gifted child and plays with the options, avoiding lectures and easy answers. The last act stumbles a bit in search of a tidy ending, but does offer one delicious final sting in the tug of war between mother and son, the equation featuring parenting, mathematics and familial pride as variables suddenly stripped to its essentials.

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Movie Review: Hidden Figures (2016)

A feel-good drama recognizing the scientific contributions of three black women, Hidden Figures has an inspirational story to tell but is also packed with over-amplified melodrama.

It's 1961, and three black women work as "computers" on the nascent NASA space program in Virginia. Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson) is a mathematical genius whose potential has not yet been recognized; Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) is being held back from a supervisory position she richly deserves, and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) has ambitions to be an engineer but faces obstacles due to segregation laws. With the Soviet Union comprehensively winning the space race, director of the Space Task Group (STG) Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) and his head engineer Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons) are under increasing pressure to place a man into space.

Katherine is recruited into the STG and starts to prove her worth despite entrenched racist attitudes. Dorothy spots the emergence of computers as a key new technology and takes the initiative to teach herself and her team computer programming. Mary refuses to take no for an answer, and pushes to get accepted into the courses she needs for an engineering degree. As the countdown continues to John Glen's maiden flight, the three women play an increasingly prominent role.

An adaptation of the Margot Lee Shetterly book directed by Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures shines a light on the previously unheralded contributions of three remarkable women who toiled against both gender and racial discrimination. Their story is irresistibly uplifting, and the film is a celebration of quiet dignity, persistence and strength of character against seemingly impossible odds.

The film does several things well. The challenge of developing the science of safely launching objects and people into orbit is tackled at regular intervals. The language may be simplified, but the hard work of inventing the math of space exploration is captured. And Melfi recreates the cerebral workplaces of the era to good effect. White men in white shirts dominate the hallowed halls of science, a pale background of uniformity against which Katherine, Dorothy and Mary literally stand out as coloured invaders.

But this being Hollywood, Hidden Figures also takes every opportunity to push a quiet story to over-saturated levels. While there is no expectation of documentary-levels of realism, the film ironically cheapens the women's achievements by adding large doses of mediocre mythology. Black women earning respect in a white male dominated world should generate sufficient drama; here the real accomplishments are obscured by superficial incidents of racial discrimination that are either fully made up or over exaggerated.

Melfi, who also co-wrote the film, invests too much time on Katherine running back and forth to the coloured ladies room, a case of first inventing a crisis and then not knowing when to let go. Dorothy's leadership of her team is elevated to a military style, invade-the-computer room heroics. Mary's courtroom highlight scene is another long stretch of the truth. The climax is most egregious, offending the space program with contrived last-minute panics.

The three lead actresses rise above the material and are uniformly excellent, with Taraji P. Henson shining brightest. Kevin Costner is his steady self, while the supporting cast includes telling contributions from Mahershala Ali as Katherine's romantic interest and Kirsten Dunst as a prim supervisor hiding behind passive racist attitudes.

Hidden Figures is stirring story partially compromised by suspect storytelling.

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The Movies Of Octavia Spencer

All movies starring Octavia Spencer and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

A Time To Kill (1996)


Never Been Kissed (1999)


Being John Malkovich (1999)

Spider-Man (2002)


S.W.A.T. (2003)


Pretty Persuasion (2005)

Seven Pounds (2008)

Drag Me To Hell (2009)


The Help (2011)


Fruitvale Station (2013)

Snowpiercer (2013)

Hidden Figures (2016)


Gifted (2017)





The Shape Of Water (2017)

Instant Family (2018)

Luce (2019)

Ma (2019)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: The Help (2011)

An emotion-packed journey to a world just beginning the painful transition from racial segregation to integration, The Help is heart-felt drama from the perspective of society's often silent servant victims.

It's the early 1960s, and racial segregation is alive and well in the deep south of Jackson, Mississippi. Young, progressive, idealistic and single Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) lives with her parents and dreams of a career as a writer. With the civil rights movement beginning to bubble across the country, New York editor Elaine Stein (Mary Steenburgen) hesitantly encourages Skeeter to pursue a book based on the experiences of "the help", the common term used to refer to the black maids in charge of all the housework and child-rearing for the white women of Jackson's high society.

Aibileen (Viola Davis) has raised generations of white children, but has carried a broken heart ever since her own son died. Her best friend is Minny (Octavia Spencer), an outspoken maid who speaks her mind and gets repeatedly fired as a result. Jackson's elite households are headed by the likes of Hilly Hollbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is cruel even towards her own mother (Sissy Spacek), and is happy to dump all the housework onto the maids while actively seeking to prevent them, by law, from using internal bathrooms. More enlightened but also more frazzled is Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), a wealthy outcast. Aibileen and Minny start to tell their stories to Skeeter, and eventually they are joined by the other maids in town. Meanwhile, Hilly's attitudes catch up with her, while Minny starts working for Celia, with both tentatively discovering the virtue of positive influence.

Based on the best selling book by Kathryn Stockett, with a screenplay by director Tate Taylor, The Help does suffer from the common book adaptation affliction of not enough trimming. There are a few too may scenes thrown in, such as Aibileen being kicked off a bus after a racial shooting and Skeeter's frantic preparations and transportation to her first date with romantic interest Stuart (Chris Lowell). These and others (the entire Skeeter / Stuart sub-story is served up in an under-cooked rush) only distract from the film's focus, and amateurishly add padding to the running length (an unnecessarily hefty 146 minutes).

But the strength of the narrative shines through, The Help depicting a profoundly disturbing environment in which rich white women depend on poor black maids to run their lives, and yet treat them as third rate human beings "who carry different diseases to white people". Yet the irreversible winds of change are blowing, and the power of The Help is in the silent realization that descends on part of the community, but not all of it, that dramatic societal upheaval is around the corner, and those left behind are in for a shock.

Skeeter is openly conscious of the ground shift and acts to encourage the ushering in of a new respect between mistress and maid. Her mother (Allison Janney) is coming to terms with the new world, while Celia, unwillingly insulated from societal norms, embraces the new reality without stopping to think. Meanwhile, Hilly and her ilk continue to promote segregation and therefore hurtle towards moral extinction, unaware that the two are linked.

Spencer won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, but Davis (nominated as Best Actress), Stone, Howard, and Chastain (nominated as Best Supporting Actress) all deserve recognition for terrific performances. In support, Janney and Spacek provide short but sharp contributions. The Help is very much women-only territory, all the male characters (mostly faceless husbands and boyfriends) reduced to almost invisible standing.

Taylor directs with as much emphasis on reaction than action, The Help drawing tension from what and how the maids overhear in terms of demeaning conversations. Aibileen draws on remarkable strength to maintain her dignity in the face of repeated insults, while Minny speaks out more often and predictably pays for it.  Both demonstrate remarkable passion and courage reacting to Skeeter's request for interviews.

Taylor's script does include brief but welcome reminders that not all the maids are honourable (one maid steals a ring), and not all the white women are cruel (Skeeter hears stories about maids being treated with compassion).

Seemingly civilized societies can nurture and tolerate an environment of insidious abuse and targeted indignity. The Help reveals the ugly fault lines, and celebrates the certainty of their expiry.

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