'Dear White People': Watch this movie
Dear White People is no love letter, but it's also not a poison-pen missive.
Rather, it's a clever, provocative and incisive social satire, with a particularly catchy title (*** out of four; rated R; opens Friday in select cities). The film takes a clear-eyed approach to the complex subject of racial identity and leavens it with wit.
Writer-director Justin Simien makes powerful points, but the film is far from a rant or screed. It's imperfect, but it's important and filled with sharp humor.
The story focuses on four black students at an elite, predominantly white college as they navigate the campus culture and establish their personal identities.
The title comes from a college radio show hosted by Sam (Tessa Thompson), an African-American woman, during which she dispenses wry and provocative thoughts on racial micro-aggressions. She discusses how whites awkwardly appropriate black culture, peppering their speech with words like "thang." In one episode she proclaims "The minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two."
But her personal life is complicated. As she moves into an activist leadership position, she hides her relationship with a white teaching assistant (Justin Dobies).
Meanwhile, Troy (Brandon P. Bell), an African-American BMOC president of a residence house and son of a school dean (Dennis Haysbert), is dating Sofia (Brittany Curran), the daughter of the white college president (Peter Syvertsen). The president's son is the entitled and obnoxious Kurt (Kyle Gallner), who runs the school's humor magazine (modeled after the Harvard Lampoon) and throws a party where everyone dresses up as characters from rap videos.
Coco (Teyonah Parris) is from Chicago's South Side and focused on upward mobility. When she auditions for a part on a reality TV show, however, she's informed she's "not black enough."
Lionel (Tyler James Williams) is a brainy gay African-American student who goes his own way, choosing not to affiliate with any particular campus organization.
It's a topnotch cast, and the actors disappear into their complex characters.
Rampant casual racism is exposed at a climactic party, a scene that's unnervingly juxtaposed with an end-credit sequence of shockingly insensitive real-life parties.
After Barack Obama's 2008 election, some pundits went so far as to dub this a "post-racial age." But Simien makes clear that race is still an issue, even in places where it's least expected.
The film approaches this issue with humor, clever dialogue and a jot of melodrama. Yet it also suffers from a surplus of characters and tries to cover too much ground, including an old rivalry between the dean and the college president.
But it is nonetheless an auspicious debut for filmmaker Simien. His style resembles early films by Spike Lee, notably 1988'sSchool Daze.
Simien drives home dual points: We should be having more outright and open discussions about race, and we should avoid making assumptions about others based solely on race.
Dear White People is an ambitious, insightful and witty undertaking on a hugely important subject.