The Other Race Film

The big race film of the summer has been The Butler with an all-star cast including Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. It looks as though a host of actors we know well fell all over themselves to appear in what was a well-acted and meaningful picture. A group of about twenty of us went to see it here in Belleville and I really appreciated the conversation that followed.

This week we saw the other race film of 2013 called Fruitvale Station which has drawn high praise and actually affected us more deeply. It stars Michael B. Jordan (the other Michael Jordan) who we know from the gritty HBO series The Wire, as well as Octavia Spencer as his mother. All through the film I tried to figure out where I had seen her before. Spencer won an Oscar as Minnie in The Help. I wish we had seen this one with a group as well and then discussed it together.

This film is also based on a true story, this one of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Bay Area of California resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008. I really don't want to spoil your viewing, but there is a scene of prayer in a hospital near the conclusion which was powerful. Spencer gathers a brood of angry and bewildered family and friends into a calm circle of prayer and leads with dignity and power.

Fruitvale Station is in Belleville at the Empire, downtown, for the weekend and I hope it is playing somewhere near you.

Have you seen Fruitvale Station? Have you even heard of it? We highly recommend it.