Another Bio-Pic that misunderstands its purpose

Rating: 6/10 (11 January 2015)

I saw exactly one trailer for this before Birdman and right away I thought that this would be one critics would love or it would be another case of The Butler where audiences loved it but critics mostly ignored it. It seems to be falling somewhere in the middle. In some ways I was disappointed with the film but it resonated with me because it was so familiar to other bio-pics I've seen recently like J. Edgar or Invictus or Mandela (and no I'm not picking on Clint Eastwood or Nelson Mandela) Consider this, we have yet to have an epic bio-pic about the entire life of Martin Luther King Jr. We have never seen an incredible actor stand up and perform the "I Have A Dream" Speech or watch in horror as his brutal assassination is recreated. We have never had any of that. So when you go into a film that focuses on one tiny aspect of a man who is larger than life, you walk away feeling more than a little cheated. What happened in Selma was very important...don't misunderstand me...but I wanted more. I wanted to see more Dr. King, I wanted to see more of the story and what he did and I felt like this spent too much time focusing on that one event and you don't get anything else around it. They do try to establish the tumultuous world and do so very effectively but there are very few of us who haven't seen this done before in films.
The cast was good but fell short of being great in my opinion. David Oyelowo was very good as Dr. King. What an incredible role for him to take on and he certainly looks the part, sounds the part and delivers his one particular speech very very well. It actually gave me goosebumps to think about what Oyelowo could have done with the role had they given him more to work with. Same could be said for Carmen Ejogo who plays his wife. Their dynamic and side story actually was one of the most interesting in the film and they could have revolved an entire film around their marriage, that would have been more fascinating. Despite reviewers saying otherwise I thought Tom Wilkinson did an excellent job playing President Lyndon Johnson. He isn't given as much as he could have either but what he does is very good. There were some interesting conversations between him and various other political figures that I think were perhaps meant to imply various historical actions (a fascinating conversation between LBJ and J Edgar played by Dylan Baker held implications about the Kennedy Assassination I believe and perhaps Dr. King's assassination too.) Oprah Winfrey has a small role mostly in the beginning of the film but she proves again that she still has some acting chops. Everyone else in the cast is good in various small but integral supporting roles. No one really stands out from the main cast as important as their characters are.
Before even looking at the director for the film, I thought to myself I guarantee they are someone with out a lot of experience. Ava DuVernay has done a little of this and a little of that but doesn't have a ton of experience yet behind her. I think it showed in this film. She probably had a lot of great ideas and tried to pack everything in there but I feel like she is missing what could have been provided about this story. Any film with Martin Luther King at the forefront should be moving and have a profound impact and Selma failed to do that for me. It was decently told and I understand everything and there were some good scenes but nothing we haven't seen before and it just gave us information and didn't move us or make us feel like we were there. I watched this back to back with another historical based on a true story film called Unbroken and both movies gave us plenty of information but failed to put us in the shoes of the people there and that's what a great bio-pic and period piece should do. Much like The Butler last year, I felt like this didn't give what it could have so its a miss in my books. 6.5/10