astaknut

This was a very hard film to watch because you're in the room with Mamie Till while she experiences everything that she does, you're feeling everything that she must have felt (if you don't have ice water running through your veins). It's basically an immersive experience of what it must have been like being black in the American South (and Chicago) in the 1950s and it's harrowing.

This is the kind of film that should be shown at schools and town houses. It's a lesson in empathy and a reminder of what a white supremacist regime looks like in unadulterated form. What's scary is how much hasn't changed, both in the U. S. and the world at large. How the same sort of group dynamics at play back then have people voting for the extreme right in this day and age. I'm very worried about the state of my country and the rest of Europe with more and more extreme right politicians getting voted into office but simultaneously the powerlessness that I and others feel is very relative compared to what the people portrayed in this movie went through. And they still fought back, which is the inspiring part.

This movie is now 20 years old. I recently watched it on tv for the second time and though it's not perfect, it's consistently entertaining and man, with everything going on in the world right now this is the perfect movie to take your mind off of things for a bit.

Ralph Fiennes' American accent is a bit dodgy but it doesn't matter. Every actor gives a good performance (seeing Natasha Richardson be hilarious made me a bit wistful, since she passed away years ago). However unbelievable the plot, this movie works. Only negative point is how Fiennes' character more than once says some pretty creepy sexist things dressed up as acceptable romcom clichés. And the ending could have been less abrupt. But again: this is a well made feelgood film worth your time.

I went into this with zero expectations, having read only lukewarm to bad reviews. From the start it was just so much better than I expected. This movie is superior to all of the Ocean's movies with George Clooney and company. Unlike those movies, this one didn't bore me one second. The pace is fast, the story stays focused and compact, the jokes are actually funny, there's an eye for detail (Helena Bonham Carter speaking good French, Sandra Bullock being epic while ranting in German), all the actresses are great. So maybe the plot wasn't entirely believable but I'm giving it 8 stars for how much I enjoyed it.