Luce

The trailer for this film is what sold it for me. It appeared to me to be a psychological thriller set in an American high school, centred around the relationship between a Black student and his teacher. And I wasn't exactly wrong...but I wasn't exactly right either.

So Luce is a young Black student, praised by all his teachers and in line to be class valedictorian. But one of his teachers is worried that he is involved in some illegal activity and gets his parents involved. As the web of lies gets more tangled and the tension rises, we start to find that we don't know who to believe.

So lets start by talking about the spectacular performances of all the actors. There are some really seasoned actors and actresses in this film, and they of course give the kind of performances tat you would expect of some of these household names. However, what Is amazing is that the breakout performances by virtually unknown actors are just as good. Kelvin Harrison Jr.'s performance as Luce was truly spectacular and it is his amazing portrayal of the character is what makes the whole thing work. The whole reveal at the end would never work if his performance wasn't as excellent as it was.

Now we need to talk about the ending. But to that we need to look at the pacing of the whole film. So it is a very VERY slow build, as all psychological thrillers are. And you can feel the film building towards a huge climax...and was is the most disappointing thing is that I don't feel like that amazing climax ever really arrives. It was quite unclear at the end what the scheme actually was or what the motivations were, and for me, that is the most important thing in a psychological thriller. Instead I felt unsatisfied. Not a good feeling for the end of a thriller.

Not the best thriller I have seen so far this year and not one that I will remember in a few weeks from now. Enjoyable to watch once, but not one I will be returning too.

A confusing, conflicting & cryptic thriller that plays with our perceptions to challenge our preconceptions, Luce clearly intends on starting a conversation but it also does the bare minimum to make it happen as the film expects the audience to figure out the mystery yet doesn't provide a starting point to get them going.

Co-written & directed by Julius Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox), the film is certainly an improvement over his previous dud and is captivating in its narration that tackles parent anxieties, assumption, suspicion, biases & guilt, but much of what it wants to say is lost in translation, and the ambivalent ending doesn't help the cause either.

There are a lot of things that are left unresolved by the end, and even the cast does too well to not let anything slip away. Kelvin Harrison Jr. chips in with a multifaceted input that keeps us guessing at all times. Both Naomi Watts & Tim Roth do good as his concerned parents. Andrea Bang easily steals her scenes, and Octavia Spencer is brilliant as usual.

Overall, Luce is a deliberately complex yet sufficiently engaging drama that asks a lot of questions but refuses to answer any of them. What keeps the interest alive is our very own curiosity to discern the truth, and the anticlimactic end leaves behind an underwhelming aftertaste. Still, for its strong performances & thought-provoking treatment, Luce is worth a shot.

My wife and I watched this movie at home on DVD from our public library.

The core of the story is about a high school boy who had been rescued at age 7 from an African country at war, adopted, named Luce (light) and raised by a well-off white family in Virginia. The racial undertones are important as an element of all the stories within this almost 2-hour movie.

New Orleans native Kelvin Harrison Jr. is featured as Luce Edgar, he must carry the movie and he does it well. Luce has grown up to be a pleasant, polite, bright, trustworthy young man who excels both in the classroom and on the track. He also has become a gifted public speaker. As we meet him he seems like the perfect young man and a model of what can happen to someone rescued from a very bad situation.

But is Luce as 'perfect' as he seems? One female teacher, who also is black, begins to have doubts as Luce writes a paper advocating violence as a change mechanism. Is he just writing in character of the French author he cites, or is he writing his own deep beliefs? And what about the things she finds in his school locker? Was she violating his privacy without sufficient cause?

Teacher, Principal, and the parents get involved. Mom gets on the side of her son, the dad confronts Luce with a "I think that is a BS answer." A few other things happen, we the audience begin to take sides. The vandalism of the teacher's house at night, the fire in her classroom, could Luce be responsible for those because he blames her for taking away the only thing his friend DeShaun had, an athletic scholarship? Or is he being falsely accused by the teacher?

The director says, in his commentary remarks, that much of it is purposely left ambiguous, the audience is supposed to decide how perfect or how flawed Luce is supposed to be. It ends without definite conclusions, without tying up all the loose ends. Many viewers will not like this but to me it is a really well told fictional story, it makes you think, it is far from a cookie-cutter story. I think Luce falls somewhere in the middle of the extremes, as most of us do.

Adapting his own play of the same name, playwright/screenwriter J.C Lee teams up with director Julius Onah to deliver a talk driven and character lead thriller that will most certainly get you talking afterwards but despite its weighty themes and controversial plot points, Luce may leave many cold come its closing credits as we are left too ponder many unanswered questions, that in some instances remain frustratingly unresolved.

Collating a well-rounded cast that includes the always good Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Octavia Spencer and featuring a star-making turn from It Comes at Night actor Kelvin Harrison Jr as the titular Luce Edgar, Onah's film is the very definition of a slow burning affair as we are thrust into a seemingly small-scale school drama that slowly but surely moves towards a much larger issue in the lives of those it's affecting.

The less known about Luce's plot developments the better but suffice to know that from Spencer's teacher Harriet Wilson concerned meeting with Luce's adopted mother Amy after she discovers a potentially dangerous item in Luce's locker following an alarm raising report his handed in to her, the film takes us on a ride that tackles issues of race, identity and stereotyping as we begin to understand more about each of the characters within Luce's world and what is motivating them to make life-changing decisions in light of alleged issues.

Front and centre to all of this is Luce, a character that is incredibly hard to pin down, drifting from likeable star student to possible deviously motivated trouble maker and Harrison Jr wondrously plays with our emotions and feelings here as he brings this on paper perfect adoptive son to life.

Watching Harrison Jr play off against Watts and Roth is a joy to behold, while his interactions with Spencer's nosey but well-meaning teacher is a huge reason why Luce is such a gripping film for a majority of its dialogue heavy runtime and for the most part Onah and his cast keep us on edge throughout as we try and predict just what will come out and who will play their true cards first.

Unfortunately for the film, come the endgame you can't help but feel as though a little too much has been left only half-explored, there's a lot of themes, issues and ideas at play here and for a film that borders on a near two hour runtime, Onah and Lee had enough time to explore these to a more satisfactory level and the unsure nature of exactly who comes out of this film as the good and the bad makes us feel short-changed as bystanders, making the journey of Luce far more entertaining that its destination.

Final Say -

A uniquely constructed family/high school drama that explores more than its fair share of weighty themes, Luceis a tightly wound thriller with some great performances and ideas but not the final execution to make it the killer offering it could've been.

3 bags of fireworks out of 5

The collective performance of this ensemble is something else.

SYNOPSIS: Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is your ideal son/student/role model. Star of the track team and the student you expect to make the commencement speech for his college graduation. However, with a tension forming between Luce and his teacher Ms. Wilson (Octavia Spencer) things begin to get stranger as you're forced to question whether Luce's intentions are pure or cynical.

DIRECTION: Julius Onah captures an atmosphere that just about suffocates you with suspicion and tension. Onah really makes you feel a few of his scenes due to angles and positions that manipulates your thoughts the same way Harrison Jr. does with his performance. Not the most unique direction, but good enough to elevate the film.

WRITING: What's so hard about reviewing this film is I can't tell what it was that really affected me whether it was the Directing, Writing, Acting or all of the above. This film itself is a manipulation. I think a large part of this is due to the writing. It's so precise and at times maybe too precise where it can be unbelievable at times.

ACTING: Kelvin Harrison Jr.. I could leave this at that, which is crazy because the rest of the ensemble was SO good. What the fluff is going on with these performances not getting any Oscar buzz? Just because you expect damn near perfect performances from a Naomi Watts and Tim Roth means they don't deserve to be talked about? Honestly, I'll chalk this up to poor marketing. This might be the least marketed film of the year with star power like that. I only knew of this film due to one trailer I saw from a film way back. Anyway, if I had my choice of Kelvin "The Ultimate Manipulator" Harrison Jr. being nominated for Best Actor, he would be right behind Adam Driver. Some short, but affective performances from Andrea Bang and Holy shift it's Astro from the US edition of The X Factor.

CONCLUSION: This is a really well made film from Julius Onah and incredible performances from the entire ensemble. Wasn't enough to get 4/5 stars just because it didn't reach a level I really saw this film having the potential to reach. If you're looking for strong acting and tense dialogue this is a perfect fit for you.