Tag: Daniel Kaluuya

Black Mirror (2011) s01e02 – Fifteen Million Merits

I’m understanding why the first episode of “Black Mirror” did a painful Lars von Trier namedrop… because the show’s just Lars von Trier-lite. This episode eventually involves a young woman being pressured into becoming a porn performer—don’t worry it’s just a terminal subplot and her experience is entirely besides the point—and it’s like, oh, what if we objectified but completely de-centered and turned her into someone else’s property.

Fifteen Million Merits takes place in the future where the British(?) government’s boffins couldn’t figure out renewable energy when it was too late and the 99% spend their lives pedaling on stationary bicycles to make energy for the world(?). There aren’t a lot of details. There is some procreation—Jessica Brown Findlay remembers her mother, which apparently others don’t—but it’s unclear when and how it occurs. It’s also unclear if anyone has any sex ed outside the porno channel they have to pay not to watch when they’re cycling. No one in the episode exhibits actual attraction to another person besides lead Daniel Kaluuya and, presumably, Brown Findlay.

I didn’t recognize Brown Findlay from “Downton Abbey” until her flirting scene with Kaluuya, which is done exactly the same as her flirting scenes with Allan Leech on “Downton.” Not the greatest moment for the script, though the functional cravenness is pragmatic. Writers Charlie Brooker and Konnie Huq aren’t going to be doing any character development (or even properly preparing the narrative to allow for character development), so why not just have recognizable cast members on the anthology show do their bits from their well-known shows?

Anyway.

In the future, the only way for the riders to get ahead is to go on the future “American Idol” (sorry, future “Pop Idol”) and entertain their way to a better life. Is it a better life? Unclear. Merits sets up numerous potential “Twilight Zone” gotchas only to always go the path of least resistance.

Kaluuya’s the lead. He’s a rider with an incredible amount of money saved up–Merits—which you get from biking and then can spend on your Metaverse avatars. Another thing about watching “Black Mirror” with a decade-plus delay is seeing where the tech billionaires have just lifted dystopian ideas whole. But you also have to pay to eat and wash, which doesn’t make much sense. Of course, it doesn’t make much sense to have the bicycles in communal areas—everyone lives in little rooms surrounded by screens; why not just have the bike in there too?

Despite the other girl who makes eyes at Kaluuya, it isn’t until Brown Findlay shows up he gets interested in the ladies. Is there some subtext to Kaluuya and porn mogul Ashley Thomas being the only Black people in the show with lines? Maybe not. Though definitely once it turns out Thomas’s porn movies are all about Black men degrading white women. Dystopia, huh?

The acting’s decent, all things considered. Kaluuya and Brown Findlay have to play people who only exist within the context of these exact forty-five minutes, which will really hurt both their performances by the end. Though since Brown Findlay is a lady and therefore disposable to the plot, she at least gets to stop participating at some point. Kind of. It’s not better for the episode, just better for her not having to try to keep the energy going in a middling effort.

Rupert Everett guest stars as Simon Cowell, though potentially an Australian one.

Budget-wise, the episode seems fine. Euros Lyn’s direction is another middling element, particularly with the reveal shots. Jamie Pearson’s cutting is good, regardless of the content. And Stephen McKeon’s music is solid.

Is it thought-provoking? Ish? It’s affecting, to be sure, but it’s entirely manipulative.

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021, Shaka King)

Judas and the Black Messiah has some third act problems. They end up drawing too much attention to LaKeith Stanfield’s character—the Judas—not having enough, well, character. Especially since director King uses footage of the real guy (it’s a true story) in the denouement, after opening the film with Stanfield in old age makeup playing the guy in the footage.

The film’s about Fred Hampton (The Black Messiah, played by Daniel Kaluuya) and Bill O’Neal (Stanfield). Hampton was the chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party. O’Neal is the FBI informant who aided in his murder. In 1989, O’Neal gave an interview for Eyes on the Prize 2 where he explained his informant status and complicity in the murder. The entire transcript is available online, with King using some of the unaired footage, which suggests he had access to the whole thing. Only O’Neal—in the interview—utterly copped out on accepting any responsibility for being a Judas. And the film doesn’t empathize with him about it, severely knocking down the effectiveness of Stanfield’s performance and even story arc. Particularly since—after an action beat—instead of seeing Stanfield’s reaction, the film uses Jesse Plemons’s white FBI guy as the scene protagonist. Basically once we get a scene of Martin Sheen in J. Edgar Hoover makeup being a scumbag and Plemons deciding he’s going to go along to get along, that plot line starts going downhill.

It unfortunately coincides with Hampton’s temporary release from jail, which has King shifting the perspective on his storyline from Kaluuya to Dominique Fishback, as Kaluuya’s conflicted girlfriend. So. Third act problems. The film’s able to do a last minute save thanks to the historical facts, which it presents on title cards (though, given Stanfield’s narrating from go and then the title of the film, it might’ve been better with the cards at the beginning versus the end); King does that ever precarious move in the biopic of bringing in the real people. It works thanks to Fishback’s person’s future, but also—and more complicated—Fred Hampton footage. The title cards draw attention to Hampton’s age at the time of his assassination—twenty-one—though Kaluuya’s not twenty-one. And Stanfield’s not twenty-one either. So there’s this biopic-y feel all of a sudden; it doesn’t have long enough to be problematic (would it have been better with age appropriate leads, et cetera) because of the real Hampton footage.

It’s impossible to have someone—anyone—play Fred Hampton. Even with the magic Kaluuya makes in his performance, it’s nothing like the actual Fred Hampton. Even in a thirty second clip, it’s clear he’s singular and the tragedy of the story punctures the soul. So King manages to all of a sudden go unsteady with the real O’Neal footage—basically using it to cop out to not giving Stanfield a fuller character—then to immediately ratchet it tight with the rest of the title cards and the Hampton close. Even if the Hampton close does Kaluuya no favors. Between the actors and the truth, King chooses the latter.

Otherwise, Judas and the Black Messiah is spectacular.

Until the second Sheen scene—Sheen opens the film lecturing to an auditorium of FBI agents about the dangers of Black people getting rights (generally getting rights; he gets specific in the scene opposite Plemons later) and it’s unclear he’s J. Edgar Hoover, unless the makeup was supposed to be a giveaway—but until that second Sheen scene, it’s Kaluuya’s film. Stanfield and his occasional narration and his meeting up with Plemons is just the narrative angle on introducing Kaluuya and the Black Panther chapter.

Kaluuya transfixes. He starts quiet in a speech to a college—where he meets Fishback and she plants the seeds to their romance, which is fantastic throughout—getting louder and louder until he sort of projects out of the screen. It’s one of the great performances from go, with Kaluuya capably handling his reduced presence and King’s revised narrative distances. But he’s the film. Even when he’s no longer the film, he’s the film. Right up until reality crashes in.

Stanfield’s good but it’s a bland part. Everyone else in the Panther party is better, starting with Fishback, but also supporting players Ashton Sanders and—especially—Albee Smith. Smith ends up with the most consistently tracked arc (versus Stanfield’s arc really being Plemons’s, Kaluuya’s transferring to Fishback) and it’s phenomenal. Darrell Britt-Gibson gets to play the sturdy sidekick guy throughout and is ever reliable. Great cast, great performances. King does really well with his actors.

Technically, it’s always outstanding. Sean Bobbitt’s photography is great, Craig Harris and Mark Isham’s score, Kristan Sprague’s editing, Sam Lisenco’s production design is excellent. Judas always looks, sounds, and moves great.

Okay, minus the Sheen and FBI stuff. King doesn’t know how to do the bad guys winning.

Judas is a big, gut-wrenching success for Kaluuya, Fishback, and King.

Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele)

What’s particularly stunning about Get Out is how nimble director (and writer) Peele gets with the protagonist, Daniel Kaluuya, and the narrative distance to him. Peele’s very patient with his cuts. Lots of long shots, establishing what Kaluuya is seeing (as well as the audience); the audience has no point of view outside Kaluuya. Then the film gets to the third act and Peele completely changes up the point of view. He sort of changes protagonists for ten minutes or so, long enough to ratch up some more suspense; it also serves to open up Get Out. Peele doesn’t save the reveal for the last moments, he lets poor Kaluuya live through it, because–while the film’s suspense horror and Kaluuya sort of a damoiseau at times, he’s still the protagonist. And it’s kind of an action movie. Kind of.

It’s also a terrifying social commentary comedy.

Kaluuya and girlfriend Allison Williams are in the country visiting her family. He’s meeting them for the first time. He’s Black, she’s white. She assures him it won’t be an issue with her progressive family; Obama-loving dad Bradley Whitford, psychiatrist mom Catherine Keener, and creep brother Caleb Landry Jones. Whitford bonds with Kaluuya thanks to his social awareness, Keener’s accepting but doesn’t like Kaluuya smoking and wants to hypnotize it out of him, Jones wants to fight him. Oh, and then it turns out the family has some extremely docile and socially awkward Black servants, who (rightfully) weird out Kaluuya.

But he’s got Williams and she’s on his side and, as things get weirder and weirder, even she starts to think maybe they ought to head home. Of course, they’re her family so she’s not on Kaluuya’s side when he’s just been hypnotized against his will by mom Keener or fondled by party guests (turns out Williams forget she was bringing him home on a big party weekend), it takes until the only other black guy (Lakeith Stanfield) at the party–not a servant, anyway–kind of flips out and attacks Kaluuya.

The film runs an hour and forty-five minutes. The party probably doesn’t finish up until seventy minutes in, with Kaluuya unintentionally discovering the secrets of his visit after it’s over. Get Out takes place over five days at most, with most of the runtime dedicated to the first two days, which is Kaluuya and Williams’s arrival and then the party the next day. Those first two days of present action are creepy, disturbing–the movie opens with a Black man, lost in suburbia, attacked so Peele gets the audience on edge before his leading man even appears on screen–and they’re also funny, they’re also (socially) gross. Kaluuya gives a fantastic performance; he holds it all together.

And then, all of a sudden, the movie shifts entirely over to his best friend and dog sitter, TSA agent extraordinaire Lil Rel Howery, trying to figure out what’s going on with Kaluuya’s weird weekend.

Taking the film away from Kaluuya and letting Howery do a bunch of exposition does a few things. Like I said before, it ratchets up the tension. It also has some humorous relief valves, because even though the audience knows some of what’s going on, Howery’s investigation doesn’t have any of those details. It just perturbs on Howery’s–sometimes hilarious–concern. Including a fun cameo from Erika Alexander as a missing persons detective.

The conclusion mixes suspense, horror, sci-fi, action, and comedy. Peele knows how to pace all the different genres. Get Out’s not a kitchen sink, all those different genre approaches work in conjunction. He and editor Gregory Plotkin do a magnificent job with the film’s cutting; Peele and cinematographer Toby Oliver always have these precise shots and Plotkin cuts them just right. Michael Abels’s score is fantastic (and essential) too.

All of the acting is good. Even Keener, who’s the least effective in the film–she’s always something of a creep. Whitford can be terrifying, but he also can be really funny. Peele’s direction of the supporting cast is phenomenal; he can follow them around for five minutes, with them running the scenes (giving Kaluuya a tour, for example), but then it turns out he’s just been showcasing Kaluuya’s perception of them. Get Out’s exceptionally well-made.

Besides Kaluuya, Williams and Howery give the best performances. Once the party hits and there are all sorts of new people coming on screen, getting introduced, Whitford, Keener, and (thankfully because he’s such an unpleasant character) Jones become background. It’s just Kaluuya, experiencing all these weird, indescribably suspicious white people, and then checking in with Williams about it.

Peele’s ambitions with the film are matter-of-fact. He’s making a suspense thriller with some humor and some social commentary. The social commentary he does make is more potentially disturbing than anything the film actually discusses. There’s no obvious, “aha they’re racist” moment. It’s far more disturbing, even at the connotation level where Peele keeps it throughout. It’s unspoken observations, sometimes passed between Kaluuya and Williams–which makes the unspoken observations passed between Kaluuya and Whitford even crazier after the reveal. It’s delicate. Get Out is a very, very delicate and precise film.

Even in its action movie conclusion, where Peele decides to reward the audience since it turns out he doesn’t have a particularly deep message with the narrative. Get Out is, while disturbing and scary and grody, entertainment. It’s superior entertainment, masterfully produced, and often exquisitely acted.

Even if Keener and Jones do utterly lack subtext; they’re not bad, their characters aren’t thin, their performances are just obvious. Kaluuya, Williams, and Howery easily make up for them.

3.5/4★★★½

CREDITS

Written and directed by Jordan Peele; director of photography, Toby Oliver; edited by Gregory Plotkin; music by Michael Abels; production designer, Rusty Smith; produced by Jason Blum, Sean McKittrick, and Peele; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Daniel Kaluuya (Chris), Allison Williams (Rose), Lil Rel Howery (Rod), Bradley Whitford (Dean), Catherine Keener (Missy), Caleb Landry Jones (Jeremy), Betty Gabriel (Georgina), Marcus Henderson (Walter), Lakeith Stanfield (Logan), Stephen Root (Jim Hudson), and Erika Alexander (Detective Latoya).

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