Careful, artful but choked (pace and style-wise) by the facts of the true story

Rating: 7/10 (7 August 2019)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr infamously stood at the Lincoln memorial proclaiming "I have a dream" to over 250,000 people - but that's not what Selma is about.
The film charts a specific period in 1965, with the civil rights movement well underway and segregation now illegal in the United States, but violent opposition in the south blocking black Americans' right to vote.
King leads his peaceful army in an epic march from the town of Selma, through deepest darkest Klan country, to the courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama, to exercise their rights.
The event is credited as having forced President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act - a portrayal under discussion for its authenticity, as Selma suggests Johnson was a road block to civil rights when historical fact shows otherwise.
The filmmakers couldn't have gotten away from the endless hushed conversations between government officials and various activists if they'd tried, but unlike most political dramas, these instances are well-placed fraught scenes breaking up the noise and violence of the main story.
King is understandably sanctified in this celebration of one of his most significant achievements but the film also places unexpected and artfully presented praise on the members of the press who put the story unfolding in Selma in front of the world's eyes, strengthening the movement to a tipping point, with the closing scene carefully honouring other lesser known heroes of civil rights.