"Rustin" -- Movie Review

 

Recently at Film at Lincoln Center, I attended an advance screening of the new historical drama, “Rustin”, starring Colman Domingo in the title role. 

Synopsis

The personal and professional struggles of civil rights activist/organizer Bayard Rustin as he attempts to plan the historic March On Washington.

Story

Being an African-American has never been easy – and when you’re both a civil rights activist and a homosexual, it further complicates matters.  This was the life that was led by Bayard Rustin; during the 1950’s and 1960’s, he was an active participant in the country’s civil rights movement, organizing rallies and peaceful protest marches (at least, the protesters were the peaceful ones).  Yet he was ostracized by politicians and organizations such as the NAACP during this period for multiple reasons:  for one thing, he was believed to have been associated with the communist party earlier in his life (which he denied) and was accused of being a homosexual (which he did not deny). 

In the 1950’s, after working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, he and Rustin had a falling-out.  This was due to Rustin’s reputation becoming too much of a distraction that Rustin, despite his skills, was more of a disadvantage to the cause.  With Rustin taking a backseat to King, Rustin resigned from the NAACP and didn’t speak with King for years because King did not stand up for him.  Embroiling matters was the fact that Rustin had a relationship with a much younger White man; the relationship effectively ended when the young man discovered that Rustin was cheating on him with a married Black preacher.

After years of not working with King, Rustin is forced to restore their collaboration when he is tasked with organizing The March On Washington – an historic peaceful protest that advocated equality for Black Americans.  While the NAACP wasn’t crazy about welcoming Rustin back into their group, they did realize that he had the skills and contacts that could make such an event work.  Not only were they planning on bringing thousands of attendees, Rustin was thinking big – hundreds of thousands.  He even wound up getting weaponless Black New York City police officers to help serve as security.  But would King and Rustin be able to resume their successful professional relationship as a result of this event?

Review

While “Rustin” attempts to tell the story of a forgotten hero of the civil rights movement, it is deeply flawed in many respects.  Informative, educational movies on this same topic may be found – especially in documentaries – but unfortunately, this is not one of them.  In explaining this stance, let’s start with the screenplay.  It does not deal well when it comes to exposition; when trying to get across some facts or background information, the viewers may understandably feel as though they are beaten over the head with a truncheon not unlike the way in which the peaceful protesters were illegitimately and unnecessarily assaulted by the police. 

Star Colman Domingo was gifted a role that many professional critics genuinely believe will inevitably be nominated for one or more awards; his performance, however, comes across as a bit overwrought.  After a while, Domingo’s interpretation of Rustin becomes a bit exhausting to watch. Rustin’s enthusiasm, energy and dedication may be considered admirable, but the manner in which it is exhibited, if accurate, is quite draining because it’s over-the-top all of the time.  One almost wonders how much of it was truly intended to be motivational as opposed to being merely performative.   

Finally, the film’s soundtrack contains a great selection of music from that era.  There’s nothing wrong with that except for the fact that it’s overused, to the point where it becomes something of a distraction; once you become aware of it, it immediately takes you out of the scene (if not the entire movie altogether).  Its implementation is not exactly subtle; it should enhance the scenes in which it is used and instead, it detracts from the experience because it seems as though it is applied in almost every scene.  If you have to constantly rely on the music from the soundtrack in order to evoke a certain emotion or mood, that suggests a bigger problem with the motion picture.