Till

 

To describe director Chinonye Chukwu's Till as simply provocative would diminish the power of its narrative, central performance and messaging -- and, perhaps, assign to Chukwu cheap propagandistic or dogmatic motives.

The elegance of the film's immaculate construction -- it is evocative of classic Hollywood cinema in its staging, art direction and costuming -- strongly suggests Chukwu's intention was to make a serious motion picture -- not social justice agitprop. She wanted to meet the demands of both the industry and the story, which, in Chukwu's telling is about a mother's unflagging love.

The 1955 lynching of Chicago youth Emmett Till while he was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, after being accused of getting fresh with a white woman is American history and America's history. So is Till's mother's response to her son's brutal kidnapping and murder.

Mamie Bradley chose to hold an open casket viewing of her son's corpse so that all of America might see what was done to him. Photographs of Emmett's unrecognizable face were run in the Black and mainstream press all over the country. And Bradley's decision ignited the fight for federal Civil Rights legislations.

Danielle Deadwyler's performance as Bradley is for the ages, and a remarkable feat for an actress with comparatively few film credits. Deadwyler, who has radiant beauty and regal bearing, is in nearly every scene in the film; she carries its enormous emotional weight on her back.

For example, the scene of Bradley's testimony before a hostile Mississippi judge and courtroom is impeccable -- Deadwyler's monologue about how she was able to identify her son after his body had been beaten and dropped in a river is wrenching.

Interestingly, Chukwu's film moves most of the white characters out of the frame, even though it was white men who killed Till. (They were never convicted.)

Perhaps in juxtaposition to Bradley's broken mother, Chuckwu and her co-writers elevated Carolyn Bryant, the white woman who accused Till of being fresh. Her face, set in pallid self-satisfaction, is the antithesis to Bradley defiance and indignation, and is emblematic of the region's attitude toward and fear of full citizenship for Blacks.

Till is a vital story well-told.