No spoilers!
She waits, trying to patient, but unaware of where her son is or why she’s even been called into the police station. She is a black woman with a black son and the police officer giving her the run around is a young, fairly new white officer. She speaks articulate, yet firm, but he offers no information. He says he doesn’t have any. She knows she is being handled and managed, but he stands firm on not knowing anything.
While she walks to get water, in walks her husband, a white man in a power suit. “I’m so glad you’re here. This woman has gone from zero to ghetto in an instant.” He doesn’t know that this is her husband. He thinks this is the detective. He runs off information that he doesn’t tell her. Until he realizes he has made a mistake, where he then reverts back to not knowing anything.
They want to know where their son is. Her husband tells her to not jump to conclusion. He makes excuses for the cops and talks about the things he has noticed recently about their son. He is wearing baggy clothes now, listening to rap music and is hanging out with other black boys. He is having an identity crisis. She tries to explain the fear her son has as a black man, because when you are older than 10 in America, you are considered a man, but only if you are black. Yet the husband still doesn’t understand.
They wait and they wait to hear what is going on with their son, to speak with their son, to see their son. They go through the motions discussing racial differences as they wait. Her husband, not really understanding the mental confusion Jamal has, being one of three black students at his school when the world is watching young black men being shot and killed by police.
Have you seen it? I will not spoil it. But if you have not, be prepared to go through a world whirl of emotions as all that is wrong with the Justice system and race relations is played out in front of you. It displays a generational difference in what complacent “black people should do” verse our generation who prefers to fight for our rights.
Kerry Washington mastered this role, when she was angry, you were angry. She was stuck and not knowing what to do next, because placed in front of her was a situation where she felt she had no control. Oh and did I say her son just turned 18? No mother really knows how to raise a black son in todays world. She talks about how she lays awake at night afraid of what can possibly happen to her son. What has happened to other black boys who look like him. She fears because as a black male you are looked upon as a suspect because of the clothes you wear; the music you listen to; or just because you are, you. When you want your child to have a better life than you, but they are angry because no one around them looks like them.
I am at lost for words. This movie is powerful. This movie has my emotions on a rollercoaster and the movie is over. I think I will watch again. Knowing the ending…. but maybe not. What did you think?
This ending is how strong I want every book, every play I write to hit.
Sierra Burgess was a heavy set “outsider” in a typical high school setting. She was a band member and people generally didn’t notice or see her, minus Veronica, the head of the cheerleading squad, who is a rival of hers. So at the beginning of the movie, Sierra is seen posting adds with her phone number for tutoring. Veronica sees it and removes her phone number from the form.
Veronica is the typical mean girl from teen movies because she doesn’t believe in dating “losers” and thinks that a person’s friends define them. So when Jamey approaches her for her number she gives Sierra’s number because his friends aren’t her type and since he hangs with them, neither is he.
Now, Jamey starts texting Sierra who has never had a boy interested in her, nor was ever distracted from her work before. She begins to fall for him but decides not to tell him that she is not who he thinks she is. Basically, she is a catfish. She comes up with a plan to get him to think she is still Veronica when she finds out that Veronica’s college boyfriend thinks she’s stupid and dumps her.
How can we allow this kind of narrative happen in this day and age? I thought part of the movie was funny because it reminded me of the old 80’s movies and Dan kept asking questions like “Is being a cheerleader still a thing?”… Dan is Sierra’s best friend who tells her all the things I wanted to tell her. Like tell Jamey the truth and nothing good can come from lying.
To me, his wife, Debbie (Renée Zellweger), was the perfect mixture of love and grace. She was furious with him but eventually asked for her number. Told her she was not mad at her and that she forgave her. She said she hoped that one day she could find the kind of love that she and her husband had and hopefully if they got there again she would not be hearing from her husband again. – That was amazing. I could’ve never had the courage to say that.
One night his wife has a dream that she’s in a hospital bed, but she was sitting in the chair watching herself. She gets up and walks down a hallway that leads to a set of double doors. The doors open up to a field. She walks out the doors and a tall black man is standing there waiting for her, not in a romantic way, but in a saving grace kind of way. She tells her husband and they begin searching for him. Only when they find him, his nickname is Suicide (Djimon Hounsou) and he is a tough cookie to break through to.
But I have always intended to. Just reading the description on the back made me super interested, but as a reader who is completely unable to make decisions between book, this one was always on my TBR (to be read) list.
First of all, I knew this was an amazing book. I have heard amazing reviews. But the movie… Oh, the movie dragged me in and made me completely in love. I absolutely love Laura Jean, because although she wasn’t me in high school, she is me now. I don’t have crushes, but I have the type of person in my head that I want, but I am too worried about getting back out there, about losing people that I stay to myself.
Laura Jean the middle child, with an older and younger sister, growing up with a single Dad and a mother who passed away. She is entering her junior year, never having a relationship and now the oldest in the house. Her sister is going away to college in a whole other county!
None of the letters were written recently, she being sixteen the recent one was written in Jr. High.
I would’ve normally skipped this movie, it’s really not my thing, I have never been into alien invasion movies, but I am glad I watched this one. The cast Micheal Peña, Lizzy Caplan and Isreal Broussard (to name a few), were amazing in delivering this action thriller.
It has its sad moments when characters you have become attached to die, and the kid keeps screaming and running when she should be still and shut up. Which is most of the reason I was screaming at the t.v…. the kid was super annoying. Her and that damn monkey toy. (insert eye roll).
This movie comes at a very important time in my life, as I struggle with my own health issues. Suzanna was losing herself. She was lost, confused, hearing and seeing things. She was looking up things online and self diagnosing, but the doctors said she was normal. Took one look at her age and said she was partying too much. She was a young pretty blonde college graduate and she was stereotyped as a party girl. This girl through out the movie didn’t have many drinks, even when she did go out. She was a workaholic, as most writers are. We are all searching for that one story that is purpose.
Her blood never showed any alcohol or drugs, but this is what they decided was her diagnosis. Until she had a seizure, followed by outrages of paranoia, and a few more seizures. The doctors ran all the test and everything was normal. They decided that they were going to have her admitted to a mental health facility. Some place that would heavily medicate her until she would die.
So then comes the thing that any child would do, she started begging for his attention. Doing and saying anything to make him spend time with her. His attention was grabbed when she said she was on the boys wrestling team. It was something they connected with when she was younger. So he was excited! In the beginning, even though she was sneaking to see him, he was making it to every match and kicking it with her afterwards giving her pointers.
But of course, as all parents addicted to the money, the hustle and the street life does, he finds a way to use his daughter to get money. I won’t spoil the rest for you but know she gets hurt and he runs. He runs and leaves her to fend for herself because he was more concerned with his own freedom.
A television show to most, but the reality and fears of black parents every where. Its not about race, it wasn’t a hate crime, but we all know it was. They named him a gang member as he laid there dying. I bet had they reported it, he would’ve lived. I bet if he reported it, there wouldn’t have been any charges, but all he cared about was himself and the son that he will never see again.
Tiffany M. Arnold 