Powerful, Moving and a Must-See

Rating: 9/10 (7 February 2015)

Sometimes you have to hand it to Oprah Winfrey. She can be preachy, she can pull your heartstrings so hard they nearly snap, and her sentimentality at times rivals that of German kitsch. But with "Selma," she has given us a moving and powerful morality story about the power of perseverance. Do not miss this film.
"Selma" tells the story of a high mark in the career of Martin Luther King, Jr., the famous march from Selma, Alabama to the capital in Montgomery in support of equal voting rights – something we badly need reminding, given Republican efforts at voter suppression and a Republican Supreme Court which supports that suppression. I suspect that King today would be more vocal than ever were he alive.
What "Selma" tells us is that things haven't changed very much. Yes, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 did grant equal protection for all Americans, regardless of ancestry. And, ever since, conservatives have been trying to water it down; they just can't be blatant about it anymore. It's not just insane requirements of the sort the Act sought to strike down resurfacing. When you consider that one in three black men will go to jail at some point in his life, and that convicted felons lose the right to vote, it adds up to a significant dilution of the black vote. It's clear that the fight is not over.
As King, David Oyelowo is truly astonishing. He doesn't attempt to imitate King; a classically trained stage actor, he finds the man's character in all its humanity, and it shows. His King isn't an inspiring Superman leading the movement without a slip. His King connives with the best of them, and he makes mistakes. One marvelous moment is the fear evident in King's eyes as one of the marches is about to start. You can almost see the words "What the hell are we doing?" in his eyes. In a scene that could be a textbook for actors, King and his wife, Coretta (the pitch perfect Carmen Ejogo) face a marital crisis, and in that moment, King is as humbled as the rest of us when faced with the choice of losing his wife and family or fulfilling his mission. In fact, there is not a single bad or weak performance in the entire film.
I've got to give some credit to Tom Wilkinson and Tim Roth as President Lyndon Johnson and Governor George Wallace, respectively. Both men are very accomplished actors. Wilkinson plays Johnson as the wheeler- dealer he actually was, the man who (almost) always gets his way. There is considerable irony when King visits Johnson in his office; a portrait of Andrew Jackson, easily America's most racist president, looks over Johnson's shoulder much of the time.
In real life George Wallace was a hateful, repulsive leech, but Tim Roth gives him some humanity. His Wallace just can't understand why black people are demanding their rights. In his view, they've gotten along just fine without them for hundreds of years. It's not just racism; Roth's Wallace really can't understand what's going on.
I'm surprised I had not heard of Ava DuVernay before this. According to IMDb, she has spent most of her career as a publicist and documentary director. But she is the only black female director to win Best Director at the Sundance film festival (2012). DuVernay is now a front-rank film director. If she continues in this vein, she has a great career ahead of her.
I guarantee you won't easily forget the first five minutes of this film. The scenes actually filmed in Selma are uncanny, as if these events were taking place today. DuVernay obviously knows how to get the best from her actors.
That there are no acting or directing Academy Award nominations for "Selma" is an artistic crime. How can you pick a film for Best Picture without acknowledging the people who made it? The sad thing is, I don't think it was conscious on the part of Academy voters. The Oscars are as political as anything else requiring a vote, and I think the mostly white Academy voters voted for their pocketbooks and their friends. Merit does not win as often as it should.
At its best, "Selma" shows what we can accomplish by simply never giving up and standing resolute. Given the craven nature of the human soul, this is a valuable reminder.