2) Dear White People (Oct. 17)
How many films can you name that talk about racial issues in a way that is both honest and funny? The topic of race relations remains prescient in an era when the president is black but the representation of minorities remains a major problem in common society and culture. Thankfully, there is a film that seems to express that anger in a way that is not reactive but sharp and hilarious.
Dear White People focuses on an Ivy League university with a small African-American minority. The black students still have to deal with an outsider status that comes to a head when a biracial student (Tessa Thompson), who hosts a radio talk show, starts using the media platform to put down the school’s white student body.
Meanwhile, the film boasts a terrific cast of TV staples getting to stretch into feature roles, including Mad Men’s Teyonah Parris and Everybody Hates Chris’s Tyler James Williams. Dennis Haysbert also has a supporting role as the university’s dean. Much of the attention, though, is going toward Tessa Thompson, in what is being deemed a star-making performance.
One of the characters in the film is described as what would happen if Spike Lee and Oprah Winfrey had a pissed-off baby. Hopefully, the former’s rage and insight can mix with the latter’s crowd-pleasing sensibility in Justin Simien’s directorial debut. (Simien was voted by Variety as one of 10 Directors to Watch this year.) Dear White People looks pointed, but still fun enough to make anyone laugh at the sad state of racial stereotypes and politics.