I won’t tell you how I managed to watch an Academy screener of SELMA at a friend’s house, a few weeks before the film’s general release. Because I’d have to kill you all. Or be killed by the kind person – who shall not be named – who entrusted us with this precious parcel.

Massive buildup aside, I didn’t really know what to expect from Selma. If people know anything about me, I’m not a huge fan of aggressive marketing campaigns encouraged to create huge hype. In fact I’m allergic. For anything that I could potentially care about I either try to see it before the masses, avoid reviews until I’ve seen it or ignore it until all the furore has died. Anything else tends to ruin it for me. I used to think that the more I got into the film business, the less easily influenced by others I would be but I think to some degree I have become even more sensitive.

I’m fully aware of how the atmosphere of my surroundings while watching a film for the first time can influence my feelings towards what’s on screen (most evident in my original review of Birdman), so in order to be as honest in opinion as I can, I tend to leave quite a bit of time between watching and reviewing a film. And when it comes to other reviews I shun them until I’ve written my thoughts. This of course does not apply to all of my film consumption. There are plenty of times I’ve fully participated in the hype – the Avenger series, the Lego Movie – basically I can be a sucker for blockbuster madness like the next fool. But for films I could potentially have a real connection with something beyond just having a good time I like to go in as fresh as possible. For Selma this was never more so true.

My attention to Selma was piqued long before the film’s release in the US. For a while I had been interested in the film’s director Ava Duvernay. After having been heavily moved by independent gem Short Term 12 and enjoyed for the most part Gimme The Loot, I was on the look out for similar fare. Films that might be small in budget but strong in plot or dialogue. I was directed to Ava Duvernay’s previous collaboration with Selma lead David Oyelowo – Middle of Nowhere. The problem was that I couldn’t find any legitimate avenue in which to see it (it’s now available on Netflix!) so after exhausting all my connections I resigned myself to the list of films that got away. But the name Ava Duvernay kept cropping up in conversation and in appearances in a few African Odyssey’s documentary screenings including in the wonderful Roger Ebert doc Life Itself.

Selma has had a lot of press, both glowing and critical but mostly less about the the actual film itself and more about the wider film sphere in which it exists. None of this I will go into detail here. There are thousands of words in print and on the interwebs for you all to navigate if you so wish. For this entry though I am determined as I was when I sat down to watch Selma, to observe my reactions to the film as just that – a film. So laying all politics aside, here is my review of Selma:

Selma is a chronicle of Martin Luther King’s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.

There is much to appreciate or even love about Selma. For starters the acting is sublime. David Oyelowo with an extensive and rich film and television background is someone I have been aware of but mainly on the peripheries. For me he falls into a category of actors who are consistently good but never outstanding. They make ideal character or supporting actors but you never really look to them as leading. Selma proved my assumptions wrong.

A combination of DuVernay’s seeming determination to not fall into the trap that many biopics do of exalting their subject to Godlike status – and Oyelowo’s nuanced intelligent portrayal of Martin Luther King – brings to life a man. And that is key to how Selma gets it so right. MLK is first and foremost a man. The film always brings back to the forefront that besides the remarkable things MLK did or was involved in, he was flesh and bone. He was a human. And he was fallible. The foundation of Oyelowo’s performance and the depth of this story at this moment in history is the centred on the humanity of the man and the others that were in his life.

One of the ways in which DuVernay does this is to spend a good portion of the film (I would have liked even more to be honest) looking at MLK’s home-life and his fraught but loving marriage to his wife Coretta Scott King. In the annals of history, the undeniable strength and sacrifice of family and friends is often forgotten when focussing on one individual’s story. It is here that the emotional heart of Selma beats the loudest. Amongst the spectacle of the hateful violence (of which there are a fair few to make the audience gasp), there were emotional punches to be had in the quiet moments too. A particular scene that sticks in the mind is Carmen Ejogo’s Coretta playing back recordings of barbaric messages left on the phone that she plays to her husband. In that short but viscerally uncomfortable scene, we comprehend the scale of sacrifice the family has had to make in particular Coretta in order to support her husband and putting herself and her children in potentially grave danger in doing so.

What also stands out about this scene is the personal turmoil that Coretta herself goes through. As a faithful and strong (and enchantingly beautiful is Miss Ejogo) wife, while it is evident that her husband loves her, that doesn’t prevent him from straying. The film heavily hints at the idea of infidelity but it is the expressions, the suffocating pauses filled with barely kept rage and distress and the measured responses that encompass the emotional fallout of all that is happening to them. It also showcases what is best about Selma – it’s emotional depth though avoiding histrionics.  And that emotional depth could only be achieved by making these people human. I didn’t think it possible to revere a man and all his done and still think him an arsehole for what he had done to those most closest to him, all the while still willing to forgive him because of the obvious shame and regret expressed in Oyelowo’s eyes. I guess I’m a sucker for some emotional manipulation when it’s passive-aggressively expressed.

Besides the performances of Oyelowo and Ejogo, I was also impressed with Tom Wilkinson’s portrayal of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Again combined with good writing by Paul Webb (and an uncredited Duvernay) and a solid performance from Wilkinson, a believably conflicted president is presented. A man politically ambitious and faced with a lot of responsibility simultaneously sympathetic and impressed by MLK, while also resentful of this man’s power and ignorant (wilfully or otherwise) to the plight of American’s black population, Wilkinson’s Johnson is frustrated as he is frustrating and I liked it.

What was evident while watching Selma was that a lot was owed to the writing. Apart from a few moments of wobbly aggrandising to little payoff, the script was near impeccable. This is never more evident than in the speeches of MLK. I’ve been told that these had to be written by Webb and DuVernay herself because they were unable to obtain the rights to use MLK’s original words. Regardless their work is a testament to their skill as script writers. The speeches (and Oyelowo’s delivery) were so potent and explosively articulate to the mood and feeling of a nation at the time it’s absolutely believable that MLK could have uttered the same words.

What was also stunning was the cinematography and the camera work on Selma. It’s of no surprise that this is the work of Bradford Young who in my opinion is responsible for one of the most beautifully filmed independent film in recent times Mother of George. Favouring raw light, Young flourishes somehow, in making Selma look simultaneously real exquisitely so, some shots so striking they still stick in the mind.

This review is beginning to sound like I’m fan-girling all over Selma so I think’s it’s only fair to point out that there were a few things that I wasn’t so keen on. My biggest gripe was that in order to demonstrate that Selma was indeed not the result of one man’s effort but a it was a MOVEMENT, the film has a huge roster of characters who were also integral to events of that time. In an attempt to give screen time to all these people, the film begins to feel overpopulated and beings to sag under the weight of all the different directions its trying to go. I in no way mean to sound dismissive nor take away from the many lesser known and nameless fighters for freedom and equality but in the case of this film, its determination to acknowledge them all made the transition from the personal to historical to political in two hours appeared to be a struggle and sometimes it just couldn’t cope.

A consequence of this is that there too many throwaway characters with little character development and little enough screen time for the audience to care about appear to seemingly exist purely for exposition purposes to provide the audience with a fact or two like actors in a museum or a history walk. On the other end of this is when there are peripheral characters that one cares about they tend to disappear and crop up again at will with no explanation nor acknowledgment.

As a consequence of such of a huge cast, the film relies heavily on audience in-depth knowledge of the events of Selma, thus making the film a little overwhelming and hard-going for those less clued up. Personally I started to feel a little frustrated at some many other tiny plot strands that didn’t necessarily add to the bigger story in any way and instead took away from the nuance and complexity of its central characters and threatened to derail the film into superficial TV movie territory. I suspect this may be the consequence of ambition over budget so I can forgiving about this as an ambitious project that has achieved more than it has failed. And in any case, I’m sure the film ignited at least a few of us to find our inner historian and find out more about all these people who were integral to driving forward the equality movement.

One more mini gripe: Like JJ Abrams loves his lens flare it appears DuVernay loves her slow motion cut. It’s in abundance here especially in the scenes of violence. Sometimes I felt their use became unnecessary because the as people can feel the emotional impact of the violence on screen without any additional ‘enhancements’. Keep the slo-mo cuts to the likes of Lord of The Rings and your 300s.

Overall:
I did like this film. I was impressed with Duvernay’s capability’s in drawing the best from her actors and her collaborative efforts with her screenwriter and cinematographer. So much of Selma worked so right for me that I am queuing up Middle of Nowhere as I write this and anticipating DuVernay’s future projects with anticipation.

DuVernay elevates Selma from typical biopic fare by bringing authenticity to her central character and not necessarily making him the centre of the story. A moment in time is the real story here. She acknowledges MLK’s importance without worship which therefore does not reduce the legacy of the man. Maybe other biopics that have been and are yet to come can take inspiration.

SELMA is screening across UK cinemas NOW.