‘Native Son’ opened this year’s Sundance Film festival at the Eccles theater where it played as part of the US Dramatic competition. Upon the end of the film’s screening, it received large audience applause in which its director – first-time feature filmmaker Rashid Johnson – and cast – including Ashton Sanders, KiKi Lane, and Nick Robinson were all in attendance. Here’s our quick take on what you need to know about the film.
Native Son is the story of a young, low-income African American male who, after securing employment in the world of a wealthy white family, finds himself at the center of an accidental death that puts him in the direct cross-hairs of cultural tensions. Adapted from the classic 1940 novel, first time feature film director Rashid Johnson (along with Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks) have made this updated version entirely their own: by highlighting the story’s underlying social issues and wrapping them up in his polished punk aesthetic, it’s a story that feels as timely now as it must have been then.
Visual contemporary artist Rashid Johnson’s previous work is in diverse mediums such as painting and sculpting. But with Native Son, his feature film debut, he brings an experienced visual eye to the project, which is the film’s most seductive and impactful quality. Where Johnson most noticeably swerves from the source novel, is in the depiction of our protagonist, Bigger (Ashton Sanders), or “Big,” as the neighborhood calls him. With his cropped green buzz cut and safety pinned leather jacket, Big is the epitome of visual identity exploded. He challenges both personal and racial expectations of what “blackness” should be by listening to such diverse and non-hip-hop music as Bad Brains and Beethoven. You’ll remember Ashton Sanders as teenage Chiron from last year’s Best Picture winner Moonlight, and here again, Sanders plays a cryptically reserved character. But as he slinks his way around the streets of North Chicago, he brings a new level of magnetism and menace to his acting range.
Rashid Johnson also succeeds in bringing wonderful talent to the movie: there’s KiKi Lane, who most recently gained name recognition by starring in the acclaimed If Beale Street Could Talk, here playing Big’s girlfriend Bessie; Nick Robinson plays Jan, as impoverished young activist; and the captivating Margaret Qualley plays Mary Dalton, the alluring daughter of Big’s new employer (an always wonderful Bill Camp plays Mr. Dalton). They, along with the rest of the actors in this film, are so perfectly cast together that – to put it in art terms – feels like the right mixture of harmonious colors in Johnson’s artistic palette.
It’s undeniable that Rashid Johnson is a flourishing visual artist and one who we should all be watching to see what he does next. The biggest obstacle holding Native Son back from being even more impactful is in the jumps in its tonal shifts, which happen when the story plays on and the stakes are raised. The story’s pivotal and climactic plot point is surprising, but this hard crank of the wheel feels a bit disorienting. The fallout of this moment leads the movie to make a statement that we didn’t know it would have to make. Yet for this slight distraction, it would be wrong to not also acknowledge the number of complex ideas, all stylized through Johnson’s artistic formats. It’s no wonder why HBO bought the film from A24 hours before the film made its world premiere at the Sundance festival.
‘Native Son’ will be available to stream on HBO this Saturday.
