The Hate U Give is a fairly typical story. Childhood besties see each other when they are older and feel something more for each other. They kiss. Then a cop kills the boy and cuffs the girl leading to a whirlwind of controversy that changes everyone’s life forever. The movie is an adaptation of The New York Times’ best-selling young adult novel, which I have not read, by Angie Thomas, inspired by various real life stories of unarmed black people who were victims of extrajudicial executions: Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice and Sandra Bland.
I didn’t know any of this information when I saw The Hate U Give. It didn’t even occur to me until the movie started that the first letter of the title’s words spell THUG, which made an immediate strong impression. I just wanted to support a movie directed by a black director starring a black teenage protagonist, Starr Carter, particularly if Amandla Stenberg plays her because I already missed her in two movies this year. I fully intended to see Where Hands Touch, but it was gone in less than a week, and the only way that I will forgive that is if it is dreadful because far more superficially inferior movies were still playing a week later. It wasn’t even playing the first Thursday night after it opened in theaters to get my last minute coins! I also did not see The Darkest Minds because it had dreadful word of mouth and was not enough of a priority to see in the theaters.
I was blissfully unaware that this movie came with a built in audience and was concerned that The Hate U Give would be hurt because it opened a week after another movie addressing the same subject matter, Monsters and Men, but in retrospect, I realize that the timing of Monsters and Men’s release was probably hoping to glean some of this movie’s audience by beating it to the theater and exploiting consumer confusion. The Hate U Give’s theater was packed, and Monsters and Men left theaters after a week. Even though the movies have different narrative styles for similar mission statements, The Hate U Give is a consistently more absorbing film with fully human characters, including the killer cop, without diminishing the message of the movie or reducing the characters’ lives to one story. The characters’ lives are interrupted, not completely devoted, to this traumatic incident. Unlike Monsters and Men, The Hate U Give provides audiences with a credible good black cop who touts the party line in a convincing way without alienating audiences or diminishing his personal relationships in favor of his profession though John David Washington is a far better actor than Common.
I initially thought The Hate U Give was too young for me as it established what normal life looks like for Starr. I am decades away from high school, and even if this movie existed when I was a kid, I was an old soul and not a typical teenager. Sure Starr’s family is strict, but her parents let her go to parties and talk to boys after school! Still my arm length’s observations did not last long after the early turning point in the movie emotionally plunges you into empathizing with Starr. The entire theater was either crying or sniffing. The movie knows that its audience is familiar with how these things go, but instead of making it feel predictable, it added to the tension. Both the characters and the viewers know which narrative they have been forced to play a role in and know the futility of that role, but Starr and her murdered friend feel like real people who must be honored and live up to their worth even if the justice system does not so they work hard in challenging the narrative while still getting swept away by it.
The Hate U Give comes with a thorny problem. How do you make an audience feel good at the end? The story needs a villain, and that villain can’t be the cop because then the book would get banned, and everyone associated with the movie would get denounced as being cop killers or anti-law and order so Starr’s role as witness gets the added tension of attracting the unwanted attention of the local drug lord played by Anthony Mackie, whom I prefer as a villain than a Marvel hero any day. I thought this aspect of the story was well done because it explored complex family dynamics, avoided completely demonizing drug dealers and seeing them as real human beings with family and friends who just want a better life for themselves and those that they love. If I put on my respectability hat, I am not aware of any story of an extrajudicial execution in which the victim was a drug dealer or witnesses felt the pressure of a gang not wanting them to testify against the police. It seemed like something added to provide the audience with someone safe to root against and feel catharsis to construct some kind of happy ending. While it worked, it did not feel organic to the story. If I’m being frank, it feels like when a talking head says, “What about black on black crime,” which ignores that according to the FBI, all crime usually involves a criminal and victim of the same race so there is such a thing as white on white crime. Still I think that it is an audacious move to not mirror real life and present an imperfect victim who can still deserve our empathy and advocacy so I do not attribute purely cynical motives to this element in the story. “I didn’t know that a dead person could be charged with his own murder.”
Visually The Hate U Give perfectly mirrored the story by using warm hues to reflect Starr’s home life and a colder palette for her school life. Her community may not be as affluent, but it is more real and fully engaged in life than the simulacrum of school life, which was familiar yet did not reflect my private school experience. The movie clearly communicated by showing, not telling. My pet peeve with most movies and TV shows is that when schools are depicted, we don’t get many classroom scenes, which made movies such as Hereditary and Halloween more relatable and engaging for me. There are no adults in that world, and there is a lot of concern the impact that this controversy will have on her academic career then nothing happens-not concern, expulsion, nada. Otherwise I thought it was well done.
I am so happy for Russell Hornsby. After Grimm ended, he hit the theaters strong in Fences and now as Starr’s father in The Hate U Give. Regina Hall is always perfect and has had a banner year to display her talents in this movie and Support the Girls. Karen Kendrick needs more work because her performance had layers of bravado and sensitivity that made her character, Iesha, more textured than expected. In one scene during the denouement, she was going for the Viola Davis steal that scene from the star award as she pretended not to care about her kids while desperately worrying about them. Even Issa Rae got to stretch herself as a civil rights attorney.
I try to eliminate kids’ movies from my viewing list because time is short, and there are so many movies, but I am happy that I made an exception with The Hate U Give, which I found quite moving in spite of the amount of cynicism that I bring to the viewing experience. Maybe it is a smidge longer than necessary, but with such an absorbing story and an excellent cast, it is understandable that you don’t want to leave them.