Writer: Audrey Wells

Director: George Tillman Jr.

Possibly the most important book written in the 21^st century thus far is Ibram X. Kendi’s colossal Stamped from the Beginning, a history of racist ideas in America. Over 600 brutal and unrelenting pages, Kendi carefully demonstrates how the systemic racism of modern American society was formed. Kendi goes into detail about the phenomenon of black people literally making themselves whiter, by bleaching their skin or straightening their hair. This schizophrenic and tragic behaviour permeates throughout The Hate U Give and in particular the protagonist Starr, who finds herself split between worlds inhabited by either white people or black.

The Hate U Give is adapted from a 2017 novel by Angie Thomas and is directed by George Tillman Jr., who also helmed Biggie biopic, Notorious. The film follows a few weeks in the life of Starr Carter, played by Amandla Stenberg in a career-making performance, after she witnesses her best friend Khalil murdered by a police officer. The opening scene is devastating in its intimate brutality. It sees Starr’s father, the imperious Russell Hornsby as Maverick Carter, giving his three children the ‘talk.’ This is not the ‘birds and the bees’ talk you might expect, but rather he goes into detail about how to react when interacting with a police officer, in order minimize the risk of harm. His children are ten, nine and one. It’s a damning indictment of any society that a parent should feel this necessary. And this idea is a continuous theme of the film, that a black person’s interaction with the state is different than that of other races. An unexpected knock at the door is greeted with fear rather than curiosity.  

Starr and her older brother Seven attend a private, predominately white school, away from the family’s community in Garden Heights. Here Starr is forced to avoid acting too ‘black’ in order to escape unwanted attention, as she succinctly puts it; ‘when white kids use slang, it’s cool. When black kids do it, it’s ghetto.’ Following the shooting of friend, Starr becomes the key witness in a grand jury case and is faced with fallout from the exposure of TV interview, after bravely calling out the role of drug kingpin King Lord in Khalil’s death. Tillman Jr.’s direction is very muted, he allows Audrey Wells’ script to exist without any whiff of flourish, which allows the never-ending brutality in which the state treats Starr’s family to be viewed unvarnished.

It is not possible to overstate how extraordinary Stenberg’s performance is. The emotional honesty, the anger, the desire for justice; they all exist within the confines of her craft. The year may only be five weeks old, but we quite possibly have already seen the leading performance of the year.

The Hate U Give is about how a family responds to a tragedy, and how this response becomes enmeshed with that of the wider community. After the inevitable failing of the police shooter to be held accountable, the Garden Heights community erupts into an understandably rage-fuelled protest. Wells’ script outlines how depressingly predictable the response society has to such tragedy is. How protests and riots and speeches and biased news coverage never serve to make any discernible difference. Both sides are seemingly trapped in an endless conveyor belt, in which actions have already been decided long ago.

This is a powerful piece of work, one which induces rage and sadness in equal measure. The film is an unashamed, unequivocal call to arms. The story may centre around Starr and her family but the film’s ultimate aim is to energise people into action. And Tillman Jr. and Wells make clear what real engagement is, actively helping the black community in their struggle and not the consumerist protests held at Starr’s school. The film is not without fault, there is some hideously clunky expositional dialogue and an over-use of voiceover. But as a film that documents black experience in unceasing, often traumatic but ultimately hopeful fashion, it is an astounding achievement.

9/10