Review: The Hate U Give

I was quite late to the party with this one. But after hearing very little about this upon its release, the strong reviews for this had me finding some time to check this out.

I ended up finding surprisingly remarkable and it could be one of the most important films of the year, or even decade.

The first act really opened my eyes as the dialogue was amazingly current with its teenage slang. That shock caught me off guard and took me sometime to get used to the dialogue and trying to make sense of it.
Once I settled down, the rest of the film was quite moving. There's plenty of dramatic scenes that each one sends out a huge message to its target audience, which I would think are teenagers, particular of an ethnic minority. However, this certainly has the appeal of a much wider audience.

The performances are pretty strong on the whole. Amandla Stenberg did a great job in the leading role, carried the film well and shone throughout. It's a pretty good breakthrough year for the young American and she'll certainly be around for a few more.
Elsewhere, it was great to a predominantly African-American cast contribute throughout the film and showed great representation.

If in the wrong hands, this could have been a schmaltzy, over sugar-coated straight-to-TV movie that would have been instantly forgettable. But they managed to send home its message with a well written and solidly structured story and gave us plenty to use as to why this deserved to be shown on the big screen.

Big props to director George Tillman Jnr. and his production staff as well as writer Audrey Wells for a brilliant script. I really enjoyed this, and was impressed with they made every scene feel important and integral to its themes and message.
I can see this doing really well when it becomes accessible on the small screen.

Rating : 8/10