By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
I’m incredibly conflicted about “The Birth of a Nation.” Writer/director/actor Nate Parker has created a searing, powerful Civil War drama, revolving around an 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner.
Set on cotton plantations in Southampton County, Virginia, it reveals that, as a child, Nat (Tony Espinosa) was recognized by an African tribal shaman as a potential prophet/leader. And he’s encouraged to read the Bible by his master’s wife (Penelope Ann Miller).
Years later, Nat (Nate Parker) becomes a Baptist preacher. Amid rumors of insurrection, he’s rented out by his alcoholic owner (Armie Hammer), travelling to neighboring plantations to spread his gospel of subservience and peace.
That’s before brutal acts of traumatic violence turn soulful Nat into a mythic crusader, experiencing intense religious visions and viewing a solar eclipse as a sign from God to lead a ferociously bloody uprising that claimed 60 white families and led to the slaughter of 200 blacks in retaliation.
Filled with heavy-handed symbolism, it’s, nevertheless, thoughtful and perceptive. But how do you separate the artist from his work?
Nate Parker and co-writer Jean Celestin were accused of raping an unconscious 18 year-old woman at Penn State. At their 2001 trial, Parker was acquitted. Celestin was found guilty but appealed the verdict; a second trial ended when the victim refused to testify again. She committed suicide in 2012.
Taking top honors at Sundance, selling for $17.5 million (the biggest in the festival’s history), “Birth” appeared to be the kind of African/American film about racism, faith and injustice that would appeal to Academy voters determined to acknowledge diversity. But will it now? It’s a moral dilemma.
FYI: Parker’s brutal portrayal of slavery depicts the rape of two women (Aja Naomi King, Gabrielle Union). And the title is the same as D.W. Griffith’s racist 1915 silent film about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Birth of a Nation” is an edgy, effective 8, yet tainted by the filmmakers’ shadow of shame.
Based on a true story, “Queen of Katwe” chronicles how Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga) from the poverty-stricken Katwe, near Kampala, Uganda’s capital, became a world-class chess champion.
Her journey begins when resilient nine year-old Phiona meets Robert Katende (David Oyelowo), who runs a sports outreach program of the local church’s youth ministry, teaching scrappy slum kids, struggling to survive, how to play chess – bribing them with a free cup of porridge.
Like Phiona, he’s suffered deprivation and hardship. Because of class discrimination, even with an engineering degree, Katende cannot get a proper, full-time job without family connections.
In chess, Phiona is told, “The small one can become the big one.”
Phiona’s enthusiasm for the new game infuriates her hard-working, widowed mother, Nakku Harriet (Lupita Nyong’o), whose income depends on Phiona and her brother Brian (Martin Kabanza) selling maize in the marketplace.
But when compassionate Katende realizes that illiterate Phiona is truly a prodigy, he finds ways to help her not only to learn to read but also overcome the many obstacles thrown in her path.
Based on Tim Crothers’s 2012 non-fiction book, William Wheeler’s melodramatic, triumph-of-the-underdog script follows a predictably biographical, sports story formula – with far too many platitudes.
With extraordinary sensitivity, Mira Nair (“Mississippi Masala,” “Monsoon Wedding”) depicts the harsh, almost unimaginable squalor in which the family lives, often without food, shelter, schooling or medical care, and directs Ugandan newcomer Madina Nalwanga with utmost delicacy.
Her performance is richly enhanced by the supporting cast, headed by David Oyelowo (“Selma”) and Lupita Nyong’o (Oscar-winner for “12 Years a Slave”).
Great credit should also go to cinematographer Sean Bobbitt for capturing the authentic African shantytown atmosphere, and the closing credits feature the actors with their real-life counterparts.
On the Granger Gauge, “Queen of Katwe” is an inspirational 7, concluding that being a winner can be a mixed blessing.
Adapting Ransom Riggs’ “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” would seem a perfect fit for the macabre imagination of filmmaker Tim Burton. Too bad he squanders this spine-tingling opportunity.
When shy, teenage Jake Portman (bland Asa Butterfield) is summoned to his beloved grandfather’s tract home in suburban Florida, he realizes that the old man is dying, the victim of nefarious thugs.
But not really. As Grandfather Abraham (Terence Stamp) explains, it’s all connected to the bedtime stories Jake’s heard over the years about leaving Poland just before W.W. II, accompanied by creepy vintage photographs of a bizarre orphanage on a small British island, off the coast of Wales.
With the help of a grief counselor (Allison Janney), Jack convinces his parents (Chris O’Dowd, Kim Dickens) to let him visit his Grandfather’s mysterious island refuge – in hopes of achieving closure.
The fun begins when Jack time-travels back to Sept. 3, 1943, to find vampy, pipe-smoking Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), tenaciously guarding her fascinating flock of mutants: weightless Emma (Ella Purnell), who wears lead shoes so she won’t float away; Olive (Lauren McCrostle), whose fingers ignite fires; Enoch (Finlay MacMillan), who re-animates objects to fight each other; plus other oddities.
They’re living in a continual 24-hour Loop, just prior to a Nazi bombardment. And ghoulish, invisible monsters called “Hollowghasts,” personified by Barron (Samuel L. Jackson), are determined to acquire that Loop when they’re not gobbling eyeballs.
While initially intriguing, Jane Goldman’s script falters, as Burton liberally lifts eerie, Gothic concepts from “Big Fish,” “Back to the Future,” “X-Men,” “Groundhog Day” and “Harry Potter.”
On the Granger Gauge, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is a strangely spooky, stylish 6, stumbling when it should soar.
( Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
