Apparence trompeuse

Sarah Daniels teaches in a Lancaster School, which is predominantly occupied by minorities, especially blacks. She soon develops a deep hatred and prejudice, even fear, against blacks, and avoids them even in public transportation. When she finds out about a vacancy in Belmont College in Vermont, she re-locates there. But her past will be put to the test when she is ironically labeled a liaison person for the minorities, as well as asked to prepare a 10 point list to resolve racism, after an African American student, Simon Black, becomes a victim of hate crime.

She will also realize that before she was hired, the Management expected her to be black.

Subsequently, she herself will question her prejudice as well as the Management's 'lip service' response to the hate crime amidst heavy media presence, and growing restlessness and hatred amongst the student body.

Quite frankly, one can only laugh out loud at the naivety shown by the school management in asking a lecturer to prepare a document titled 'how to resolve racism'.

For generations, judiciary, and human rights commissions have turned a nelson's eye on this issue, and that's precisely the reason why it continues on undeterred.

One must often wonder as to why most people on one hand are contemptuous of lawyers, but respectful of judges - who at one time were themselves lawyers. Many lawyers are appointed to the judiciary by politicians - thus issues never get addressed and get even more complex in the long run. This is why people take to the streets and there is violence when concerns and issues are left unaddressed.

A thought provoking movie, and a must-watch for all.

You know, there could have been a decent story here, but so many "isms" and trite dialog (like a very bad David Mamet play "Oleanna" about sex discrimination....very trite and pointless. Forced dialog that NEVER occurs in real life does not a film make.

Beau Bridges as Dean of a Vermont college, reciting the story of "Little Black Sambo"?.....it doesn't ring true and SJP while sometimes good, overdoes the fake agenda here...:"I used to be a decent person, then avoided black men on the subway".... Have we regressed yet again to 1970?.

The final hour of this film is simply awful for anyone with an I.Q. who has lived or worked in a city, any city in a real world. Frankly, I am tired of SJP and that "Carrie Bradshaw" is representative of NY women who are caring, open, emotional, but get hurt when they wear their heart on their sleeve. Trite and awful. The audience deserves better.

Greetings again from the darkness. Rainy days are always a good time to take a flyer on a movie for which not much is known. I should have just stood in the rain for 90 minutes. An award winning play from Rebecca Gilman, this one is turned into an amateur production by first time director Mark Brokaw. Even the abrasive Sarah Jessica Parker deserves better.

A decent cast with SJP, Miranda Richardson, Beau Bridges and Mykelti Williamson (Bubba from Forrest Gump) can't come close to saving this one. This is a failed attempt at having us analyze our own prejudices and views on racism and political correctness. I can tell you where my prejudices lay ... on lousy, exploitive film-making.

There are hundreds of films that bring more depth and reality to the topic so don't waste a nickel on this one at the theatre or even NetFlix.

This movie's concept is thought-provoking, however the execution of the point it is trying to make gets lost somehow. In some way I think it is the actors chosen for this film -- maybe it would've worked better if they were mostly unknowns. Because what the viewer needs here is the ability to understand that the characters depicted in the story are not stereotypes. And yet they are portrayed as such to a great extent and it just didn't add up to the kind of depth that ought to be there to sufficiently address racism. Anyway the movie felt stunted, and for some reason I found it hard to believe that the actors themselves, for the most part, believed what the characters they portrayed were saying. Yes, there was the attempt to portray how hypocritical the college professors and professionals were and how sensitive the minority students were to prejudicial slights. I just got the impression that something more intrinsic to the entire situation was missing.

Interestingly Sarah Jessica Parker did eventually come across as believable. Everyone else i thought was on another planet and it all felt disjointed.

This film is not bad per se -- the story itself is intriguing in that it does try to depict racism. I found it hard to believe on some level that a college would react so oddly.

Wow, where do I even begin with everything that's wrong with this piece of garbage? Possibly one of the worst screenplays/plays ever written, this racially charged drama tries hard to make you think and feel for the characters when all you can think about is "why is race such a big issue here?" The entire film didn't make any sense. Unrealistic situations and unrealistic characters didn't help much either. Every white person is racist, according to this film. Every black person is racist as well, according to this. Same goes for everyone else. Including the so-called "New Yoricans" as one dumb ass student likes to call himself.

I don't get angry at films for any reason. Stupid teen comedies are that - just stupid. I hate them as well. Gruesome, bloody horror films are generally terrible, but then again, it's hard to get mad about something that's so fake. This film is the best example of a film that can truly get my blood pumping with rage because it gets everything so wrong.

According to this, every white person looks down on every other race - especially blacks. As a white man (who's closest friends were of all different races - white, black, Puerto Rican, including the love of my life who's black), this deeply offends me. It's the same as saying every German wants to maim or kill a Jew and every Muslim wants to strap a bomb to themselves and blow up a building or plain. Those stereotypes just aren't true; so neither are these crap accusations that this film is making. The screenwriter should be shot for this angering time waster.

Watch it only to see my point. Especially about the completely avoidable racial tensions. Other than that, I would strongly suggest you skip it entirely.

Usually I would never tell someone not to watch a film that I really don't like because for all I know I could be turning them off of the greatest film they've ever seen. It doesn't matter what it is. This movie is the rarest of exceptions.