Luce. Julius Onah, dir. A better title for this movie would be Boxes. Its theme is about the artificial boxes built around people (societal expectations) and boxes built around themselves (goals), especially for blacks in America.

A seven-year-old refugee from war-torn Eritrea is adopted by the Edgars and given the name Luce. We’re left to wonder throughout the movie if this adoption occurred for the wrong reasons, including the Edgars feeling good about themselves. Luce is black; the Edgars are white. And Mrs. Edgar (Naomi Watts) works hard to fit Luce (Kevin Harrison Jr.) into genteel white upper middle class society in Arlington, VA.

The boy grows up and develops a love-hate relationship with a black high school teacher Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer), who also wants more for Luce but suspects he hasn’t left behind the violence of his homeland. Luce resents both boxes, the one his parents have constructed for him and the one Wilson wants to build for him.

Everyone in this movie has baggage; everyone is flawed…but not any more than real people. It’s much ado about not much, slowly building an artificial intensity that seems to accompany the music instead of the other way round. Frankly, considering audience conversations afterward, not many viewers understood it…or could identify with the problems portrayed that are, pardon the expression, white-washed.

But there is some great acting that saves this movie, especially by Kevin Harrison Jr. and Octavia Spencer. The director Onah and J.C. Lee wrote the screenplay. Maybe it would have been better as a true play on a Broadway stage? The history of Sundance and other critics’ praise couldn’t sway me to think better of this portrayal of a war refugee’s story. It’s like art imitating real life…and failing. You might want to give it a chance, though. The story’s better than most Hollywood movies’ these days…where Sturgeon’s Law applies all too well.

***

Comments are always welcome.

The Last Humans. LA Sheriff’s Department forensics diver Penny Castro surfaces to find a post-apocalyptic world in this thriller set in the near future. Her struggles to survive, find new friends, and create an adopted family make for adventures that will have you asking, “Could this really happen?” Available in print and ebook format from Amazon or the publisher Black Opal Books, or in ebook format from Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.). Also available at your favorite local bookstore (if they don’t have it, ask for it).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

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