Stars: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones
Director: Carlos Lopez Astrada
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
2018, though, has been odd in that most of the major releases have been pretty dull or disappointing. After Black Panther set a high bar earlier this year, no other "#1 Movie" release has compared to it and even Black Panther was only good on a sliding scale. And yet, 2018 has produced a groundswell of rich independent cinema, oftentimes in genres that aren't really in my regular rotation (high school movies, coming-of-age films involving animals), and that is surely the case with Blindspotting, a smart, carefully-constructed film that tackles racism, gentrification, and a justice system that routinely punishes young black men. It does that rare trick of being an "issue" film without ever being solely about that issue, instead providing a buddy comedy motif that plays out on one consequential weekend.
(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on Colin (Diggs), a young man who is only days away from finishing his probation. He's from a poorer neighborhood of Oakland, a city we see being infused with new, frequently white, upper-middle class individuals who are trying to transform the city into being a slightly less-expensive San Francisco. Colin and his friend Miles (Casal) work at a moving company, so this story of gentrification comes naturally and is perhaps the most pointed critique I've seen of gentrification, with so much of the personality and history of this city being displaced for cookie-cutter Whole Foods & Pottery Barn-like liberalism. There's a great scene late in the picture where a white, hipster CEO who speaks in "slang" to the only three black people in the party brags about the tree stump he's using as a table in his new living room, and how it has "140 years of history," ignoring that his presence stole this tree's home, and the home's of so many young black people who won't be able to gain from the cash his privilege will hog in the newly-gentrified city.
Colin's quest to get off of probation is frequently sullied by his friend Miles, a white man who grew up in similar economic fashion to Colin, but whose privilege as a white person oftentimes means that he can exercise less restraint than Colin in tense situations. The film hints at, and then calls out, how Miles, despite taking part in the brutal assault that landed Colin in jail, likely got off due to his whiteness. Most films of this nature would provide you with a crib notes version of privilege early on, with clunky expositional dialogue that felt out-of-place for the characters to be saying, as if to inform the white members of the audience why they're underlining certain plot points, but Blindspotting is too well-crafted to care about such talking points. If you don't understand that Colin lives in a world where he is constantly fearing retribution and interaction with the police in a way Miles cannot understand, then you need to start paying attention.
The film is not easy to swallow, and there are moments in the picture that feel so real because of the constant presence of police brutality toward young black men in the news, as well as the omnipresent threat of gun violence in today's society. There were moments in the movie where I was whispering audibly "don't" or "end the scene, please end the scene" and I wasn't the only person doing it as I could see audience members audibly cringe and shudder as we witnessed all-too-real moments in Colin's life where he is put in impossible situations. The film is not short on reality, and so the scene where Miles' son gets ahold of a real gun and starts playing with it makes your stomach drop, knowing that this might not end the same way it would on an NBC procedural. That realism is weirdly countered by occasional fits of fantasy, like Colin's nightmares reliving the brutal murder of a black man by a police officer early in the picture or the way that in a showdown with said police officer he is suddenly gifted with the rapping skills of Daveed Diggs, rather than the limited ones Colin has exhibited earlier in the picture.
The movie lives and dies off of the chemistry of Diggs & Casal, and it's very tangible. Childhood friends, you see both actors at the top of their games as their relationship, and its clear pitfalls, boil to light as the women in their lives demand that they acknowledge the truth (if there's a clear problem in the film, it's that the women in the picture are vastly underwritten and border into the "props" trope of buddy comedies, and yes, despite deeply serious subjects, the film is probably a dark comedy). The scene in the parking lot, where Miles refuses to say the n-word despite being called it by Colin the whole picture is towering, as is Miles' frustration with the way that someone who acts so much more recklessly than he is afforded more luxury by society due to his race. It's a smartly-shot, well-crafted scene and creates a human angle that is so oftentimes lost when dealing with movies highlighting social issues. Blindspotting is a small movie (it was only still playing in a handful of theaters in my area despite me living in a Top 15 media market), but like I said, it continues the trend of 2018's films being thought-provoking if you just look a bit down on the Box Office rung.
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