The most suspenseful scene in Ava DuVernay’s Selma does not depict the dramatic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, nor an Oval Office facedown between Martin Luther King, Jr., and President Lyndon Johnson. No, the real cliffhanger happens during a twilight domestic scene between King (David Oyelowo) and his wife Coretta (Carmen Ejogo). The husband’s alleged extramarital affairs are the immediate concern, and at this crucial moment in the civil-rights struggle, two married people must acknowledge a few intimate truths. The storytelling takes a pause, the gifted actors operate on a slow simmer, and Selma conveys a tingly sense of the way the march of history turns on human give-and-take in humble rooms.
If all of Selma had that personal electricity, it might be a fresher movie. A lot of it is that good, and a lot of it is dutiful lesson-telling. But even when it feels like civics class, Selma benefits from its timing: Coming at the tail-end of 2014, a truly rotten year for race in America, the film’s depictions of protest marches and boiled-over tensions can’t help but create ripples of excitement in a movie theater. DuVernay keeps her focus on the events surrounding the march, when the horrifying violence of Alabama law enforcement against black protesters—televised in a newly immediate way—helped turn public opinion toward the idea of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It’s a stirring true story, and DuVernay deserves credit for including the layers of strategy and compromise that happened behind the headlines.
This very American story has a curiously Brit-dominated cast, including Oyelowo and Ejogo. The casting is not a huge issue, although anybody with direct memories of the larger-than-life presences of LBJ and Alabama governor George Wallace can be forgiven for finding Tom Wilkinson and Tim Roth (respectively) insufficiently vulgar in the roles. Cameos by the likes of Oprah Winfrey (as a victim of the ludicrously unfair methods of keeping African-Americans away from the voting booth) and Cuba Gooding, Jr., carry an unfortunate TV-movie guest-star air about them, although one understands the value of getting marquee players in a relatively low-budget project. For all the wobbles, when the film reaches its climax, the sheer force of history bends toward its fascinating mid-’60s moment. The feeling that the victories of 1965 can be viewed through our 2015 eyes as unfulfilled promises gives Selma its present-day juice.
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SELMA Opens Thurs., Jan. 8 at SIFF Cinema Uptown. Expands Fri. at Ark Lodge, Majestic Bay, and other theaters. Rated PG-13. 127 minutes.
