Oscar 2013: Fruitvale Station (spoilers)

This past January, at Sundance, like always, several notable acquisitions were made.  And like most any year, one or more of them will find a little Oscar glory come early next year.  Beasts of the Southern Wild, Winter's Bone, and Little Miss Sunshine being bright past examples.  How will 2013's crop fair?  There are plenty of movies which got singled out in reviews for one thing or another, and a good deal of them got picked up for a tidy sum.  If we look at the studios who are the usual suspects at the Oscars, we have five.  Sony Pictures Classics picked up three: Before Midnight, Kill Your Darlings, and Austenland, the former of which appears to be one to keep your eye on (and releases soon).  Fox Searchlight bought The Way, Way, Back (directed by two of the writers behind The Descendants, and likened to Little Miss Sunshine by some) for an astounding $9.75M.  I'm anxious to see how things develop for that film, especially in light of the studio having just bought the distribution rights for the unseen, much more baity Twelve Years a Slave.  And TWC swooped in and grabbed Fruitvale Station for a cheap $2.5M.  (The Oscar-untested Relativity Media purchased Don Jon's Addition for $4M, A24 grabbed The Spectacular Now for $1M, and RaDiUS-TWC bought Lovelace and Concussion for $3M and $1M respectively, among other independent purchases.)

Ryan Coogler, writer and director of Fruitvale

Fruitvale references an Oakland BART station incident which occurred four years ago in the wee hours of New Year's Day involving the fatal shooting of a young man, Oscar Grant, by a police officer, Johannes Mehserle.  Grant was black, Mehserle is white.  Witnesses say unnecessary force was used against the unarmed Grant prior to the shooting; Mehserle has testified that he intended to tase the subject (a witness verified his verbal claim to do so), but grabbed his gun instead (whether by accident or sudden fear that the uncuffed and unfrisked Grant was reaching for a concealed weapon).  Peaceful demonstrations followed immediately after, which attracted riots, and continued sporadically through the pretrial process, largely fueled by separate strains of cell phone footage that captured only part of the altercation from a distance and spread across the media and internet right after it occurred.  Mehserle was later found guilty of involuntarily manslaughter, but not-guilty of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.  The final verdict sparked a passionate outcry of protests in the local community.

Filmmaker Ryan Coogler, who grew up in Oakland, attended USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he won a slew of awards for a series of shorts.  His feature debut Fruitvale [IMDb: 7.7; 153 users] won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance.  The movie opens with the cell footage of Grant's final night, and then depicts glimpses into his life leading up to it, where we learn he was a former convict who was recently on parole and beginning to turn his life around.  Whether or not he would have been successful will never be realized.  The film returns to his final moments and the impact it had on his family.  The Hollywood Reporter, one of the biggest supporters of the movie, was all over Coogler's direction, as well as the performances of Michael B. Jordan as Grant, Melonie Diaz as his girlfriend, and Octavia Spencer (also a producer) as his mother.  SlashFilm couldn't throw enough accolades in Jordan's direction.  Unlike Collider or Film School Rejects, they believed the film wasn't overdone or politically boxed-in at all.  In fact, they write quite the opposite, "On a level that has nothing to do with activism" the movie is "largely free of hyperbole and excess emotional manipulation."  Their only gripe is that actor Kevin Durand, who has cultivated a persona for himself as a character actor, was miscast due to his recognizability that took the reviewer out of the moment.  They gave it an 8.5.  The Film Stage agreed with the bulk of SlashFilm, and lamented how desensitized our society has become to violence.  They also loved Spencer.  Being from the area depicted in the film, the Twitch reviewer openly embraced Coogler's verisimilitude of the Bay Area and Grant's socioeconomic realities and insinuates first-hand knowledge that the movie didn't need to unnecessarily take a balanced approach to the BART police, because they are even more evil than the cell phone footage suggested they were.  First Showing gave it an 8.5 and also didn't have a problem with the melodrama and wasn't the only reviewer to compare Jordan to a young Denzel Washington.  Toh! wants you to know that they ugly cried, like, Angela Chase level of tears.  (For the record, I loved the series, but don't recall such unrelenting releases of emotion on My So Called Life; and I speak as someone with an extensive experience of ugly crying.)

There were other outlets who could appreciate the movie, but took exception to its emotional appeals that were sometimes unearned.  IndieWire gave it a B+ and thought it was a good, solid film.  They loved Jordan, but sometimes found Coogler overdirecting his story and getting repetitive.  They weren't as bothered by the ending, and were especially floored by the audience reaction towards the end.  Collider really liked it and also gave it a B+, specifying Coogler's talents, as well as Jordan's, and also pointing out how many were in complete tears during the Sundance screening.  They identified most with a protagonist who was trying to better his life, though hadn't yet completely got himself on the right road.  However, they took exception to the film's politics, which come out of the blue towards the end and rob the movie of some of its humanity.  Film School Rejects concurred and gave it a B-.  They commended Jordan's performance, as well as Coogler's script for examining the life of a person who is trying to do better, but never gets the chance to fully realize his potential.  However, despite the movie presenting Grant as a flawed human being, like Collider, they weren't as impressed with the film's artistic liberties that turn him into a defacto symbol of a victim of injustice. They didn't buy how the movie skewed unfairly against the police, asserting indisputable charges of brutality that the filmmaker fails to make a clear argument for, only assuming for the audience.  They loved the third act, but were put off by the agenda.   Variety agreed with the last two reviews, wishing the script relied less on gimmick and more on the strength of Jordan's performance, but wasn't as bothered, warning readers that if it's a martyr complex they seek, this is what Coogler delivers.

I'm a bit anxious to weigh my thoughts against these opinions, which will have to wait until the film releases on the 26th of July (originally set for October, was it a counter-programming move to avoid the Fall glut like a lot of Sundance entries end up doing?).  I wonder if my bleeding liberal heart will succumb to the film's perhaps weighted emotional appeal, or I'll be put off by the black and white approach, so to speak.  Or both.  These days, I find that I don't like to be talked down to and offered predigested opinions.  Surely, I get that Grant's death was a senseless calamity.  And I also recognize that some are motivated by racially-charged animosity.  But there are also instances where such events as Fruitvale spring out of color-blind chaos and take place without explanation; no amount of finger-pointing can turn back time or offer easy answers.  Or, perhaps, Officer Mehserle shot Grant because of imagined, deeply unconscious fears brought on by the young man's racial identity.  I have no idea, but from what Collider and Film School Rejects have to say, the movie does.

Based on the reviews, nods for Michael B. Jordan and Coogler's screenplay are practically givens.  With TWC in its corner, it may be looking at more, perhaps Coogler's direction and entrance in the Best Picture field.  This film will surely attract a great deal of attention for its hot button racial subject matter and tearjerking content.  This was TWC's only acquisition from Sundance.  Surely, Harvey Weinstein bought it for good reason.  This may be a year that Oscar (finally) spills over with black storytelling.  If so, Fruitvale may lead the way.

Previous Editions:

American Hustle     August: Osage County     Foxcatcher     Fruitvale Station     Out of the Furnace     Prisoners     Saving Mr. Banks     The Secret Life of Walter Mitty     The Way, Way Back