It's the sort of character-heavy drama you go see live theatre for. It's essentially a chamber piece for a handful of talented actors to bounce off each other. Their material: half a dozen hot-topic sociopolitical issues that are as timely as they are timeless. And while, as a film, everything feels a little diluted here, the screenplay seems determined to help you feel as connected to these characters as you would in the same room, breathing the same air. It's an admirable project, one that most compares to last year's The Seagull in style and efficacy.
Kelvin Harrison Jr. steals the movie as the leading player, the titular Luce. He was adopted, we learn, by white Americans and rescued from being a child soldier in Eritrea, since which time he has apparently gone through lots of psychotherapy. Now a star student and star athlete, loved by everyone at his high school, he is a sort of poster child for the American Dream. He's the valedictorian, and we see him delivering moving speeches to his classmates and mentors. He's also far smarter than lots of folks give him credit for, and he too has a dark side; Luce's secrets take his community by storm when they are revealed, and his vengeful fantasy has only just begun.
At least, that's one way to read the film. Another way is as a damning indictment of older folks -- "okay, boomers" -- who are too obsessed with labels and ideologies to see the real people they're categorizing. Luce is a lot of great things, but that doesn't make him a great person. And so when Harriet Wilson, one of his teachers (played by Octavia Spencer), finds one of his papers disturbing, she immediately voices her concerns. To be fair, the assignment is a bit problematic, and someone as smart as Luce would surely jump at the opportunity to stretch his own perspective in writing it. But Ms. Wilson takes things pretty far in order to intercept what she sees as Luce's dangerous interests, searching his locker under ethically ambiguous pretenses and getting his mother (Naomi Watts) involved.
The film deals with largely unspoken ideas, and it gets more complicated when a central motif of the screenplay is that of coded language. At one point, during a parent-teacher conference that looks more like an intervention, Luce -- ever the diplomat -- calls Ms. Wilson "strict" or something to that effect when what he really means is "bitch," which even his father is aware enough to sense. And we feel the same way: she is a strict teacher, which is good, but she also overstepped her bounds and violated Luce's privacy. Then again, as much as I think we are meant to identify/sympathize with Luce, it's never quite clear whether he is too smart and more than a little sociopathic. He certainly has great answers to the adults' questions, answers that sound pre-planned and quite convenient. And it seems unlikely that someone so smart and well-liked would allow himself to be put in such compromising situations. Plus, there's that final shot, which features Luce running toward the camera with a look of completely unreadable hostility.
And for all I loved about this movie, there is enough potentially problematic material that I'm not sure anyone should watch this movie unless they're prepared for some really tough questions about representation, socially responsible storytelling, and the balance between artistic purpose and artistic integrity. For example, Ms. Wilson's mentally ill sister appears in a couple scenes and is brutally exploited in one, for seemingly little reason except to round out part of Ms. Wilson's character and invite the topic of mental illness. Similarly, one of Luce's friends -- and his sometime girlfriend, we learn -- Stephanie Kim was sexually molested by other high school boys before Luce saved her, and now she's basically a tool for the film to briefly touch on the #MeToo movement. And of course there's Luce's parents, who are dangerously close to being iconic white saviors; in one of his speeches, Luce proudly tells the story of how they named him "Luce" because they couldn't pronounce his African name. It's nauseating, and probably indicative of Luce's ulterior motives, but I think it's intentionally so.
The problem is, it's not clear what the filmmakers are really saying about these issues, other than simply introducing them as topics for debate. And I'm not sure that's enough for a quality film.
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