Local boys make good in masterful look at their changing city
Berkeley High grads and old friends Daveed Diggs (of Broadway’s Hamilton fame) and local slam poet and artist Rafael Casal join Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station; Black Panther) and Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You) in bringing Oakland to the big screen, in a timely and powerful picture that should be required viewing not only for all Bay Area residents, but also for those who want to understand the ever shifting cultural and economic landscape of a Bay Area in flux. Diggs and Casal both wrote and star in Blindspotting, under the direction of their TV and short film director friend Carlos López Estrada, who makes his extraordinary feature film debut here, and was rewarded with a Sundance Grand Jury Prize nomination for his efforts.
Diggs plays Collin, newly released from jail to a halfway house in Oakland, where he is to serve a year on probation, for a crime that will be revealed over due course. The probation countdown appears on screen, and we know as the picture begins that Collin only has three days left before he’ll be free to truly start his life again. The main tension of the picture comes from wondering if Collin can make it through these last three days without becoming inadvertently involved in something illegal. Because Collin’s childhood best friend is the volatile Miles (Casal), the prospect of trouble is never totally off the table, much to the chagrin of Collin’s ex-girlfriend and coworker Val (Janina Gavankar), and his mother Nancy (local theater actress Margo Hall).
That Collin is black and Miles is white is a big part of the picture, which doesn’t shy away from exploring some of the heavier problems facing Oakland today. Police and community relations, Black Lives Matter, gentrification (including the moving in of new tech money at the expense of longtime, older, often African-American residents) and the uneasy coexistence of the young, primarily white so-called hipsters and the older, established Town residents are examined with the considered thoughtfulness that such complex issues deserve. Collin and Miles work for a moving company, a plot device that allows us to see gentrification up close. Wayne Knight (Seinfeld) has a comedic turn as a new-agey, touchy feely photographer, whose pretentiousness about his photographs shows little understanding of his subjects. And in one poignant scene, Miles and Collin find family albums of a long gone African-American family, buried in the debris of an abandoned house, being sold off by a cool and distracted young white woman.
Other, more serious situations add to the tension, including Collin witnessing a police shooting of an unarmed black man, Miles getting into a catastrophic fight at a tech party in the Oakland hills (while wearing a “Kill a Hipster Save Your Hood” t-shirt), and Collin dealing with the fact Miles recently bought a gun, which also ends up affecting Miles’s girlfriend Ashley (Jasmine Cephas Jones) and their young son.
Filmed throughout Oakland by cinematographer Robby Baumgartner, the picture paints a loving portrait of a complicated city in transition, and its treatment of both Collin, who is the more sympathetic character, and Miles, who, despite outward appearances, is just as deserving of our compassion, is respectful and moving. A scene in which the two friends finally confront their resentments and anger showcases Diggs’s and Casal’s acting skills, as well as their deep understanding of the people they are portraying; their conversation about their racial biases and privileges (including an unflinching discussion of the use of the “N” word) is candid, genuine, and unforgettable.
And Diggs gets a chance to use the rap talent that earned him a Tony Award in Hamilton; near the film’s end, he delivers an impromptu rap that is as starkly poetic as it is potently forceful. Not to say the movie is humorless, however; it definitely has spontaneous and fun moments of levity (a scene in which Miles sells flat irons to a disapproving beauty shop owner is comedic genius, and raunchy locker room banter among the Collin, Miles, and their moving company coworkers rings true, and underscores the importance of camaraderie and community). But what Diggs, Casal, and Estrada are trying to do here is to show us how our perceptions — both conscious and unconscious — and societal stereotypes can shape us — blind us, if you will — even among our closest friends and family. It’s a heady message, but it’s delivered so deftly, and under the guise of such a relevant and well-told story, that, as in all great films, we don’t even realize we’ve seen something truly special until we walk out in the bright sunlight and realize we’re thinking about ourselves and our place in the world in whole new ways.
—————————-
Blindspotting opens today at Bay Area theaters.
