Biopics of famous historical figures are probably my least favorite type of film that Hollywood habitually releases, and there are a couple reasons for that. The first is a matter of focus. Too often these movies feel an obligation to cover the entirety of their subject’s life, from childhood to death, and they suffer from their attempts at cramming too much in. A lifetime is made up of thousands of stories, and when you try to touch on all of them you can’t help but give each short shrift. The second reason is the problem with recreating iconic imagery. When you’re recreating moments that have been replayed and reabsorbed by an entire culture time and time again over the course of decades, your recreation can’t help but distract the audience with its creepifying inauthenticity. Thankfully, Ava DuVernay has avoided these potential problems by making a Martin Luther King movie that focuses on one specific period of the man’s life rather than glossing over its entirety, and that doesn’t include his legendary “I have a dream” speech anywhere in its run time.
Selma manages to get to the heart of who King was as a person and what it was like for him to be at the forefront of the civil rights movement of the 60s by lasering its focus in on one critical period of the man’s life—when he was organizing a march from Selma, Alabama to the capital building in Birmingham in order to protest the extreme levels of voter suppression that blacks were experiencing in the state. Despite the fact that this event is only one piece of a very large puzzle when it comes to the things that King and his supporters were able to accomplish over the course of their efforts, it alone is enough to convey to us the personal toll that dedicating your life to a cause puts on a public figure, the shrewd politicking that’s necessary to bring about even the most righteous and idealistic change, and the danger that comes with confronting people’s prejudices and trying to change beliefs that they very passionately hold. By not being the typical biopic of a historical figure, Selma manages to be one of the rare entries in the genre that actually accomplishes what every one of these movies should be setting out to do—giving us a window into the everyday humanity of their iconic subjects.
Of course, telling a focused story that avoids the big historical moments we already intimately know only explains why Selma isn’t a failure, and not why it manages to be a success. To get in over our heads by attempting an automobile metaphor, one can try to picture DuVernay’s film as a high-octane engine that runs on the grave nature of its subject matter and the skill of its performances. As long as it’s pumping itself full of violence and tragedy and having talented actors responding with vulnerability to said violence and tragedy, it’s a powerfully effective piece of work that’s more than able to keep the viewer engaged on not just an intellectual level, but on an emotional one as well.
The task of playing King is a Herculean one that requires its performer to not only embody a figure who’s become more of a symbol than a man over time, without appearing to be in over their head and ridiculous, but also to mimic a public figure who had a very mannered and distinct way of speaking and carrying himself, all while appearing to the audience to be natural and human and not an actor performing or, even worse, doing an imitation. Too many performers get saddled with roles like this and wind up looking like a comedian doing an impression of a public figure on SNL. Not David Oyelowo though, who plays King here, and who does it while pulling off everything we’ve mentioned an actor playing this role would need to pull off. When you watch Oyelowo you forget that he isn’t really King, but you also forget the preconceived notions you have about King that you brought into the theater. The guy is so good that he allows you to simply exist in the moment.
Oyelowo isn’t alone in propping up this film with a strong performance either. His supporting cast is vast, and it’s made up of top tier talents almost to a person. From actors like Oprah Winfrey, Wendell Pierce, and Stephan James who are playing lesser known figures in the civil rights story to actors like Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson, and Tim Roth who are playing figures as recognizable as Coretta Scott King, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George Wallace, everyone is able to establish a motivation and personality for their character and everyone is able to find at least a small moment to connect with the audience, even though their screen time is being shared by such a large number of performers. I mean, really, the six actors we’ve just mentioned are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how many actors have speaking roles in this movie. Selma is positively packed full to bursting with strong performances.
Where the movie falters a bit is in the down moments where the story gets too far removed from the latest outrage-worthy offense our protagonists are forced to endure. Every once in a while we’re treated to small moments that play very naturally, where people are just sitting around a table, sharing food and making small talk. They add color and humanity to the film and are nice to see. But too often the down moments consist instead of scenes where the characters are doing little more than sitting around a table making plans for the future, or, even worse, explaining to the audience the current situation as it stands. A film with so much talking and so much explaining could have used a bit of style and panache in order to keep it feeling kinetic and looking visually interesting, but DuVernay’s filmmaking approach is much more inert and utilitarian than anything like that. Her camera sits still, and her edits come when necessary. In its best moments, Selma is able to bring the era and the issues of the civil rights movement to powerful life, but it also contains a handful of moments that feel too much like reading a dry paragraph in a textbook. It’s certainly a valuable work that’s worth seeking out, but it’s also just shy of being something truly special.
