Native Son

It may have moments where it feels unwieldy—like a runaway train gone off its tracks—but it never flags for one second. A movie this bold doesn’t dare lose momentum.

It’s a fiery, flawed, often stunningly made film that provokes uncomfortable discussion, rather like the Richard Wright novel it was based on, although purists might argue over some key changes.

While this slow-motion tragedy sometimes risks more than it can deliver, the film’s cumulative effect stuns nonetheless. Ashton Sanders heads a fine cast that forcibly articulates the everyday landmines African-Americans have to navigate in a white society that often seems intent on destroying them.

For every scene that doesn’t work there is another that’s spellbinding. It’s gutsy and provocative and, frankly, that’s a compliment you can’t give many independent films these days.

The early stretch of the movie is its strongest, as Johnson lays out the bric-a-brac of Bigger’s life, which involves a good deal of code-switching, and carefully tweaks the novel’s key relationships, updating the condescension of his employer’s rich-kid daughter, Mary (Margaret Qualley), to a new era of white guilt and microaggressions.

Screen adaptations of well-known books are a tricky art. Stray too far from the source material, and purists will be upset. Stick too close to the text, and you risk alienating others. Native Son sits somewhere in-between paint-by-number loyalty and artistic interpretation.

Though it has some problems as a film — some of which are part and parcel of translating a book to the screen — Native Son still packs a punch, one that connects directly with the gut.

I've never read Native Son but I've always wanted to do it, maybe now after I've seen this adaptation I finally do it. The book was published 80 years ago and for all I've heard about it still quite relevant and although the story of this film is obviously an update of the subject the book relates, I honestly found it a bit empty and even kinda robotic. I'm not so sure if that's the right word to make clear how I felt the story but I said this because even though the film begins very well and keeps a good style for most of the first part, it comes to a certain point in the second half where it gets lost and also the final part feels a bit shallow. I know it seems to try to give a message but it really doesn't. It's the HBO quality but it didn't leave me completely satisfied