TMS Movie Review: Till
(Lynsey Weatherspoon / Orion Pictures)
Last week it was Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár in Todd Field’s Tár, this week it’s Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till in Chinonye Chukwu’s Till. Currently the two frontrunners for Best Actress this awards season, and for two completely different films. While Tár is a commentary on a modern, complicated, successful woman, Till goes all the way back to the mid-20th century for a history lesson on both race and sexism in middle America. Anti-black racism isn’t a new subject for historical dramas and political commentary on screen, but Till and Chukwu take different turns than the typical message film.
In the summer of 1955, 13-year-old Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall) leaves Chicago, IL, to visit relatives in his family’s native Money, MS. Emmett’s mother, Mamie is concerned for her young son’s safety, since he’s never been in a dangerous town regarding race relations. Mamie’s worse fear comes true, and she gets word Emmett was kidnapped and murdered unjustly after an encounter with white shop lady, Carolyn Bryant (Haley Bennett). After Emmett’s body is returned home, Mamie makes it her goal the media doesn’t downplay or alter her son’s demise by publicly exposing the details of his corpse.
Deadwyler’s lead performance is getting the most coverage regarding Till, and you can see why throughout the movie. She gives a strong, organic portrayal of grief from a woman both mourning her son’s murder, as well as frustration dealing with reporters and officials constantly bringing up the irrelevant fact that Mamie’s living out of wedlock with her boyfriend Gene Mobley (Sean Patrick Thomas). She’s on edge, traumatized, angry and depressed, but determined to at least seek justice for Emmett. Chukwu’s direction is straight forward rather than artistic most of the time, but she makes good use of Till’s script, co-written by her, Keith Beauchamp and Michael Reilly.
(Lynsey Weatherspoon / Orion Pictures)
Here, the vast majority of the cast is black and we don’t see very much from the racists themselves. Usually in biopics set in the deep south circa the 1950s, we would get a good chunk of the runtime spent on the white antagonists and their motives. Or even have the main characters actually be white, well-meaning detectives investigating the case, such as in Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning (1988) and Joel Schumacher’s A Time to Kill (1996). But Till focusing solely on Emmett’s family, and primarily his mother, shows that we really don’t need big names like Gene Hackman or Matthew McConaughey to sell a feature with a serious subject matter, especially in the age of streaming and social media. Deadwyler is a steady working character actress, mainly associated with Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall (2021) and HBO Max’s “Station Eleven” (2021-22); and her delivery alone in Till is enough to grab viewers attention, and hopefully give her exposure for more starring roles.
Another unique thing about Till is that the violence in the picture isn’t the murder itself, but long, graphic close-ups of Emmett’s corpse, seen through Mamie’s eyes during the autopsy. Just showing the fatal results of the killing is effective in itself for viewers and the characters. If there’s something a little bit off, it’s the puzzling casting of 34-year-old Bennett, when the real young Carolyn was actually 21 at the time. Plus the common criticism in filmmaking these days of how a 2+ hour movie could have easily shaved off 15-20 minutes for tighter pacing, which now includes here in Till. But along with seeing Whoopi Goldberg back in a drama and Sean Patrick Thomas in a major film so long after Roger Kumble’s Cruel Intentions (1999) and Thomas Carter’s Save the Last Dance (2001); Till still might be the historical drama for 2022.