"Fruitvale Station" (2013)

On New Year's Day 2009, a twenty-two year old black man named Oscar Grant was shot and killed by police at the Fruitvale Train Station in San Francisco. The incident was recorded by on lookers and stirred up a national controversy. Fruitvale Station dramatizes the last day of Grant's life leading to up to his death. The film plays itself like a Greek tragedy in the making, hanging the inevitability of Oscar's fate over everything that occurs. While sometimes this plays out a little too neatly with people saying things steeped in dramatic irony or Steve Coogan's script painting Oscar as an almost too exceptionally nice and decent person, it plays mostly fair with who Oscar Grant was, given the nature of the film. Coogan doesn't leave out some of the more problematic elements of who Oscar was: he sold drugs, was formally convicted, cheated on his girlfriend, and occasionally lost his temper. But Coogan's ultimate task is to humanize a man who could so easily just have been a symbol or a statistic. Even in its most unbelievable of moments, such as when Oscar goes out of his way to help give a woman he's never met before his grandma's fish fry recipe or comforts a dying dog in a foreshadowing heavy moment, Michael B. Jordan's charismatic performance carries the day. Due to Jordan's performance, even at his most reproachable Grant is never less than sympathetic. He's a man trapped in by circumstances; he's a man cut down by larger systems beyond his control that make it difficult for black individuals to improve their lot in life. We know we're being pushed to feel deeply upset about the events at hand, but it's often easy enough to forgive the film because it's just brimming with humanity. Fruitvale Station's primary goal is to show the humanity underlying not just Grant but everyone around him, including major supporting characters like his girlfriend (Melonie Davis), and his mother (Octavia Spencer), but even passing characters as well. There's a beautiful moment towards the end of the film where one of the police officers realizes how out of hand things had gotten and demonstrates his total agonized regret. It would be so easy to depict the police as merely a force of evil, but Coogan in stead reminds us that they're just people, as much victims of the system, in their own way, as Oscar. While race is a major thematic interest at hand (as well as class), it's never the end all be all. This is about celebrating one man's brief life as much as it's about mourning why that life was so short.

Grade: ★★★