Dear White People

Dear White People (15)

USA 2014 106 mins Dir: Justin Simien Cast: Tyler James Williams, Tessa Thompson, Brandon P Bell, Kyle Gallner, Dennis Haysbert

One of the sharpest, funniest and most scabrous movie satires in many years, Dear White People delights in upending – actually, more shattering – a viewer’s expectations at every turn. That it arrives in a year where racially motivated violence in the USA is disturbingly prevalent throughout the news couldn’t make it more timely; think of it as Woody Allen meets Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.

Of course, director Justin Simien (here making a remarkably accomplished feature debut) might very well resent such a glib description. After all this is a movie that, like its characters, isn’t interested in occupying one particular set of preconceptions. The title derives from the name of a pointedly provocative student radio show broadcast from the film’s location: an elitist American Ivy League college where various inter-racial tensions look set to reach boiling point.

And right from the off, the movie challenges our crass preconceptions in exciting ways. Tempted as we to think that this is an elitist, predominately white establishment, we’re then introduced to Dean Fairbanks (Dennis Haysbert), a black man who has devoted his life to ascending the academic ladder whilst beset by prejudice on all sides. Then there’s his son, Troy (Brandon P Bell), a former head of fraternity house Parker/Dean who at the start of the movie loses the student election to his ex and ‘Dear White People’ presenter Sam (Tessa Thompson), a passionate and vitriolic young woman whose insistence that her fellow black students are seen as ‘lesser’ gains her as many enemies as allies.

Troy for his part isn’t interested in becoming a lawyer as per his father’s wishes; instead, he wishes to become part of the team writing for the college’s satirical comedy magazine, a decision that forces him to align with its arrogant white editor Kurt (Kyle Gallner). Also in the mix is aspiring black journalist Lionel (Tyler James Williams), a young man commissioned to write a piece on Sam who is perceived as something of an outsider by everyone, both white and black, a position that has seen him bumped between the various houses on campus. And then there’s ambitious wannabe TV presenter Coco (Teyonah Parris) whose body language and dress sense is seen by Sam as courting favour with the so-called privileged white folks.

The film’s delightfully witty character interactions ought not to be spoiled. Suffice it to say, Simien’s direction is very careful to occupy a middle ground between the various races, examining the capacity for both compassion and prejudice on both sides. It’s also very funny: one of Sam’s pithy radio jibes is the following: “Dear white people… don’t dance.” It’s also horrifying: when the older Fairbanks comes up against his rival, the college’s white president Hutchinson (Peter Syvertsen), the latter opines, with a completely straight face: “Racism is over in America.” Simien knows exactly what wounds to pick at until they fester and ache. The righteous anger builds towards a truly jaw-dropping climax that is directly inspired by a history of racist American college parties. However shocking the film is, it is but a mirror held up to our own animalistic ugliness. But that’s also what makes it essential viewing.