Roman J Israel Esquire (2017)
By: Thomas Krawford
Tags: Autism, Social Justice, Movies, Helping Others, Mental Health

The lead actor and the writer.

Roman J Israel Esquire (2017)

A movie review by Thomas E. Krawford Jr.

Cast: Denzell Washington, Carmen Ejogo, Colin Farrell, Tony Plana, and Amanda Warren.

Director: Dan Gilroy

Synopsis: Denzell Washington stars as Roman J. Israel Esquire, a sheltered criminal defense attorney; working in a two-person progressive law firm in contemporary Los Angeles; who suddenly finds himself out from behind the shadows; when his employer suffers a debilitating heart attack at the beginning of the film, and Roman unwittingly wades into the waters of the system of jury trial, appellate, and courts of appeal in the wrong big city; ultimately yielding to mortal consequences for himself; but perhaps also triumph of sorts; a long-lasting testimony to his ideals; his most closely held beliefs; beliefs he tragically felt he had betrayed at the end of his life.

Review/Argument

Dan Gilroy brings to the screen the story of Roman J. Israel ESQ.; a criminal defense attorney in modern-day Los Angeles who sees himself as an attorney; a progressive activist attorney that is; working in a two-person law firm in contemporary Los Angeles. Its genre is that of a legal drama, but there are some glaring inconsistencies with this simple classification; inconstancies between the protagonist's arc and that of the story as it develops throughout the motion picture, that demands much closer scrutiny on the part of the reviewer and the audience.

For starters, there are those reviewers out there who come to the point they choose to make from the outset; that the lead character in the motion picture does indeed place on the Spectrum as someone who exhibits Asperger’s Syndrome; a highly active form of processing disorder; one that renders this kind of disability virtually invisible to the untrained eye.

Then there are those critics who see that the protagonist is merely frumpy; nothing more complicated than that, with no mention whatsoever of the nature of ebbs and flows, characteristic in the Spectrum of Autistic Disorders; and of course in those women and men who place somewhere along that spectrum.

The one thing both perspectives do not fully grasp, both about the movie in general and about people with Autism in particular in our contemporary world, is the adage: if you can’t see it, how do you know it’s there?

Autism presents, generally speaking, of course, like an invisible disability.

Contrary to this quick and easy assessment, however, it is just as much a debilitating social and political incapacity as it is a very personal challenge; one that stays and doesn’t go away, no matter how hard many parents, friends, and or co-workers might wish it out over the course one’s life; or otherwise soft-pedal the issue in the workplace, for instance, to the point of equivocal absurdity.

Moreover, neither perspective considers the physical, mental, and spiritual toll it takes on any person who places somewhere on the Spectrum; when all three cases, for their different reasons; seek to achieve and support what often amounts to and is usually achieved as; an oatmeal sort of normalcy; a mutually supported realization of general social acceptance. In the protagonist’s case, normality is seen in how he is generally viewed by the other characters in the story. It’s almost as if he’s some delicate family heirloom, forever on display in a dusty living room buffet cabinet everyone has forgotten, and no one pays attention to; figuring as it were, that: “He’ll be o.k. He’s smart!”

Autism is visible; it is a disability, whether it’s evident to the naked untrained eye or not.

I am willing to bet that both in my own and Roman J. Israel’s circumstance, Autism is not; was not openly acknowledged; first by mother, father, or both; then by the individual; the lead character in the film; or has luck would have it, myself. In both cases, throughout an often-confused life, either in a fictional crime drama sense or in real life; not acknowledging Autism, openly and honestly, almost becomes a double disability; one that rarely leaves the affected person any moment of peace; either at work, at play or even at night, when sleep is the only lingua franca.

Indeed, there may come the point in that individual’s understanding of their place in the world; their lot in life; where questions we all struggle with; like why we are here; points to times where we may or may not make a fundamental choice that ultimately affects both our lives and lives of those around us; times that leave us with an uncomfortable, yet intimate kind of sense, that no matter what happens, we have done the best we could under the circumstances; even though, individually, those times of tough choices; choices we make with no full understanding of the consequences of those choices; to ourselves, our friends and families; and most importantly here for our purposes in this review; for both the character of Roman and myself; our ideals. The things we believe we would sacrifice almost anything to achieve finally. The things we feel as though we had worked on nearly our entire life.

In hindsight, of course, these kinds of times are moments of personal crisis; where we are given a choice; to either seriously believe our ideas are much greater than us; or succumb to the inevitability of our shared human natures; natures full of flaws; natures full of strengths; natures full of unknowns.

We recognize the cost of our choices at that point, and we make those choices regardless, fully knowing what we could gain and what we could lose, even if the price we pay is our very life.

We gamble.

We all do; all of us risk something, something of value at one point or another.

Don’t we?

The character portrayed by Denzell Washington in the movie gambled that the legal system under which he served was so broken and disconnected, that it would never come calling one day for the payment; for what the protagonist or one may argue; the counter-protagonist believed was a sin of impropriety on his part; when in actuality; not knowing the intricacies of California Law; one could reasonably guess that his act; as depicted in the film, was merely an ethical violation; since at the time Roman J Israel Esq, betrayed Carter J Woodson; Woodson was not yet his client at the time of the alleged betrayal.

He gambled on plea bargain reform, and he lost, and he believed he lost, and that’s where the motion picture takes us. What should’ve been perceived by the audience as the film’s tragic turn; tragic at least for the life of Roman J Israel Esquire, unfortunately, became the film’s fatal flaw in terms of critical acclaim, and I know why?

Throughout the story, we, the audience, are shown glimpses of nature and the narratively suggested upbringing of the protagonist, Roman J. Israel; his almost savant nature; his general disassociation from recognizing the feelings of others; and his constant use of ESQ (esquire) which is indeed a courtesy title generally used when corresponding with a fellow attorney who is also an esquire; whereas with Roman J. Israel; he used the crown all the time he introduced himself, and it’s here that the film does not adequately capitalize on what could have been a cornucopia of back story (possibly flashback); critical information; necessary links between Roman’s past; his present and his future in terms of the story; as depicted in the 2017 film of virtually the same name; Roman J Israel Esquire; an African American adult male with an invisible disability.

So, what can we, as the audience, take away from the motion picture? What can we say about it? We know there are many more critics out there who didn’t like or appreciate the movie than there are who did, but what can we say about this 2017 feature film in terms that make sense to us, as people, not as well-intentioned critics or equally well-informed intellectuals and journalists?

Well, as an audience, perhaps we can agree that someone who believes in the existence of a Supreme Court of Absolute Universal Law is unusual; but why so impressive? Of course, the answer is obvious; no such legal institution exists. Yet, if one were to judge themselves according to such a personal standard so impossibly high to meet, as Roman J. Israel does indeed do; then Roman J. Israel Esq., although not hopelessly dissociative, is a character who, no matter what we think about him or the challenges he faces; because of both his nature; and what may also be a denial of that nature; from his upbringing to his understanding of himself as a lawyer; a man, or even, a black American; one who finds himself, throughout the motion picture; seemingly hopelessly lost (at least from his point of view); then we must see ourselves in between the narrative of a dream; to the moment where that dream does or does not come true. Yet, as a critic, we have to take a much more narrow and inherently less-lethal perspective than the protagonist ultimately and tragically commits himself to pursue.

As contemporary critics, we the audience must concern ourselves with a much narrower perspective than the immediate past would give us agency to perceive; and document as empirically substantive, a collective, and individual response to the George Floyds, the Brianna Taylors, and Roman J Israel’s of the world of 2020.

As a free-thinking individual in a society such as this one; where thinking freely is considered a virtue, especially in Roman J. Israel Esquire; we’re not looking at George Floyd, Treyvon Martin, or Brianna Taylor; for example, as guideposts of behavior going forward. We see these events unfold in our world as confirmations that our world, as we have come to understand it to be, is a world embroiled in change, whether we like or accept the change or not.

How do we reconcile the lead character’s behavior, as portrayed in the film, to our current understanding of social justice? As this reviewer argues, the uncomfortable answer has been the solution all along; to not see Roman J. Israel Esq, as another outside our scope of belief; but to be witness to the blame we all share as merely being human beings; complicit in the range from the most significant common general circumstance of the folly of human avarice; to the least common individual result of merely being finite beings prone to error.

So, what can we say about Roman J. Israel Esq. as a film? As a film, it falls short of telling the story of a character who had a story worth telling, but it doesn’t fall short because of its lack of mindfulness. It falls short because of its lack of commitment to a character we are not used to seeing in our familiar contexts of good guy versus bad guy scenarios, modern motion picture narratives.

In this film, we see that Roman is both the good and the bad guy, at least in his mind; and he is so because I believe, somebody raised him to believe that his Autism (his nature) was faulty at its core; and as such, it needed to be denied by himself, his family, and the rest of the outside world.

Yet, at the same time, I believe as Roman believed in the movie; that his ideals and arguments about his profession as a criminal defense attorney were sound and valid beyond reproach; and in my case, I too share the same conviction about most of the things I choose to believe in professionally; not necessarily about my behaviors which I am sad to say, are generally never entirely perfect; but whose actions are; professionally or otherwise?

Thomas E Krawford jr.

Ann Arbor Mi

December 2020