‘Till – The crime that changed everything’: The straw that broke the camel’s back

Nigerian-American filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu seeks to follow in the footsteps of her compatriot Kasi Lemmons with a cinematic style that reflects the struggle of African Americans for a more just world. If with ‘Clemency’ he explored the complexity that exists around the death penalty in the judicial system of the North American country, with ‘Till: The Crime That Changed Everything’ dares to take it one step further, bringing the story of Mamie Till-Mobley to the cinemaa woman who has become one of the symbols of the struggle for black rights in the United States after the brutal murder of her son Emmett Till.

Nominated for a BAFTA and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress, ‘Till – The crime that changed everything’ has its main virtue in the inner strength that transmits Danielle Deadwyler. Despite having a prominent career in film and television, his face was internationally unknown. Without a doubt, there was no better cover letter than playing a mighty mother of courage, which she was one of the symbols of the struggle of African Americans in the United States and whose history is known in the North American country, but which was little known outside.

Thus, Chukwu, who co-wrote the screenplay with Keith Beauchamp and Michael Reilly, makes a film with a certain educational aspect, which allows the audience to understand the reality of African Americans in the 1950s. the director highlights the differences between the north and the south, between Chicago and Mississippi, showing how southern states have been at the center of racial inequalities and how, almost a century after the Civil War, the differences between North and South continued to be seen forcefully before the outbreak of the diverse social and civil rights struggles that erupted in the 1960s, with African American rights as the main bastion.

Danielle Deadwyler elevates to cinema

‘Till – The Crime That Changed Everything’ try to do that exercise in pedagogy and history. The result is an effective fiction exercise that allows an approach to the reality of the time, with an appeal that has created references in the struggle for civil rights. Here, Danielle Deadwyler once again plays a fundamental role, who knows how to perfectly convey that soul of a courageous mother, recalling powerful and combative mothers like that of Sally Field in ‘Not without my daughter’ or Chrissy Metz in ‘Beyond Hope”.

However, the film has, in the end, similar problems to ‘Harriet. In search of freedom’, whose development seems too conventional and its visual quality is very reminiscent of a TV show. It also doesn’t help that Chukwu recreates himself too much at critical moments, such as the arrival of the body or the discovery of how the body is in the morgue. Similarly, it takes the director a long time to fully enter the judicial part, being almost a footnote, when it could have been the most fascinating moment, as the case has once again confirmed inequality and injustice of the system.

Danielle Deadwyler is the one who manages to elevate herself to feature film. ‘Till – The crime that changed everything’ manages to be effective in its sense of denunciation and in its pedagogical nature. However, perhaps a greater risk is missing at a cinematic level (such as ‘Claroscuro’ or ‘El blues de Beale Street’, both magnificent and with artistic ambition), given that the final result is not far from that shown in similar titles such as “One night in Miami”, “The Mother of the Blues” or “A Matter of Justice”.

Note: 6

The best: Danielle Deadwyler’s interpretation.

Worse: The feeling of watching a TV movie.