With its title this movie succeeds in getting your attention. It asks you to listen, to find out what its message is. Does debuting director Justin Simien mention to get that message across convincingly?
Part of growing up is finding your own identity, voice and place in society. On the university of Winchester four black students are trying to do exactly that. They are Sam White (Tessa Thompson), who hosts the radio show Dear White People. With her provocative, Black Panther like ideas she has a clear voice and comes across as very sure of herself. It’s an image she likes to keep up towards her fellow students, but at the same time she is struggling with other feelings, like a white boyfriend she is seeing secretly. Lionel Higgins (Tyler James Williams) is someone who doesn’t seem to belong anywhere and can’t seem to connect to any group. Troy Fairbanks (Brandon P. Bell) is the son of the dean, so he has to make sure he doesn’t do anything to hurt the image of his father. Because of that he has to do a lot of things without others knowing (like secretly smoking joints in the bathroom). The final one is “Coco” Conners, who comes from a poor neighbourhood and would love to join a reality show, but who wants to prove she isn’t who people think she is. These characters initially seem to be very stereotypical, but as the movie progresses you see other sides of them.
Even though the movie is labelled as a comedy I didn’t think there weren’t that many laughs to be had and the movie felt a lot longer than its 108 minute running time. The most important reason for that feeling is that the general story misses focus, which results in a collection of scenes and some badly executed subplots. The movie wants to talk about specific issues, but didn’t manage to do this is a way which made me think. The question is what type of audience the title will bring to the movie and if it will “scare away” viewers. If you see this comedy for laughs then you might be disappointed. Still Justin Simien is a director to keep an eye on. The way in which he shows the story reminded me a bit of Wes Anderson, with a lot of close-ups and unexpected “chapters”.
Too bad you didn’t enjoy this one more. I really liked it, though it is certainly flawed. Interesting you note that it feels longer than its stated run-time. While I agree that it isn’t laugh-out-loud funny at all, making the comedy label troublesome, I still liked the pacing and it went by fairly quickly for me.
http://dellonmovies.blogspot.com/2015/02/dear-white-people.html
Yeah, for me it just was a very weird movie and maybe it is also because the things shown in this movie are very much influenced by American society….
I still haven’t seen this yet, not sure why but it just didn’t appeal to me. The title is certainly provocative, I give ’em that. Maybe one day I’ll check it out, hopefully I’d like it more than you Nostra.
I hope so as well, don’t want you to waste your time Ruth!