FRUITVALE STATION

Fruitvale Station (2013)
Grade: A-

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz and Octavia Spencer
Premise: A tragedy befalls a small-time drug dealer just as he's attempting to turn his life around.

Rated R for thematic material including language and racial slurs, intense emotional content, violence, blood, and brief sexuality

It's said we all live in our own little worlds. Fruitvale Station, a simple but shattering movie based on a real event, reminds us we all share one big one, and need to be mindful of it.

I confess I'd never heard of the New Years Day 2009 Fruitvale Station incident until I began hearing buzz about this film. It's a sad story. In the wee hours of January 1, 2009, a fight allegedly broke out on a Bay Area Railway Transit (BART) tram, causing uniformed BART police officers to stop the train at Fruitvale Station. They then pulled a handful of African-American men from the train and made them sit against a wall at the platform. According to multiple eyewitness accounts, the officers verbally abused and harrassed these young men, the events culminating when one was shot in the back while being held facedown on the concrete. The man was Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old heading home after heading uptown for the New Year's celebration. He was unarmed. Like the recent Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman incident, this shocking incident prompted protests against racial profiling, gun laws, and authority figures' rights and duties.

Not that Fruitvale Station is a political commentary or a documentary...other than a brief bit of cellphone footage of the incident, it's not a movie that knows any time has passed since Jan. 1, 2009. The main character is Oscar Grant (played by a wonderful Michael B. Jordan), and he is portrayed not as a martyr or the victim of a tragedy, but as a regular guy. We see him both argue and exchange sweet nothings with his tough-love girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz). We see him cuddle with and dote on his young daughter, Tatiana (Ariana Neal). We see him encounter a few strangers, meet with a former drug-selling buddy, try in vain to get his grocery-store job back, and attempt to sweet-talk his levelheaded mother (Octavia Spencer). Fruitvale Station is less 'The Oscar Grant Story' than 'A Day in the Life of Oscar Grant', a day that happened to be memorable only because of the horrific way it ended.

Did this movie need to be made? Maybe not, but the Fruitvale Station incident and its young victim clearly made an impact on Ryan Coogler, who was a USC film student from the Bay Area at the time it happened. Coogler, who wrote and directed, has made a film that does two great things: first, knowing the end makes even Fruitvale's plainest moments profound and heartbreaking, because you know what lies in store for Grant's future; second, it does make clear (as was clearly the intention), Grant was just like and you and me. He wasn't a hero, a martyr, or a civil rights crusader, he was a young man--an ex-con, yes, but an everyday guy just the same--with a mom, a daughter, and a girlfriend, who tried to do the right thing and had struggled at times and even been to prison, but who almost certainly didn't deserve to spend his last conscious moments being harassed, kicked, shoved against a wall, insulted, called names and then shot, all because of the color of his skin.

In and of itself, Fruitvale is not suspenseful, but every moment and performance gains gravity because of what we as the audience know is coming. Jordan is very, very good, showing us both the mama's boy with the winning smile and the lion-hearted young man who refuses to back down from a fight. While you could argue the film is a touch too flattering of Grant at times, it doesn't shy away from ugly moments and it doesn't try to paint a nicer picture of his circumstances then it needs to (watch Diaz's reaction when Oscar admits to his girlfriend he didn't get his job back and he still dumped out his last bag of weed). Most of all, Jordan makes Oscar endearing--he's great company for this hour-plus, and when tragic circumstances dictate he exit the picture, his absence is felt...as it no doubt is for his friends and family in real life.

Watching Fruitvale made me ache for those who are treated wrongly and discriminated against. It made me angry, not just at the police officers involved (the officer who shot Grant served 11 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter after claiming his mistook his pistol for his taser in the heat of the moment), but at myself, for judging people and treating people differently for their appearance or their momentary actions--I watched Fruitvale the day after Seattle Seahawks' corner Richard Sherman alienated many with his rowdy, cocky, blustering post-game comments after the NFC Championship game, earning scores of "punk" and "thug" labels from social media users everywhere, myself included. And it made me want to appreciate the people in my life more.

Fruitvale Station (2013)
Written and Directed by Ryan Coogler
Rated R
Length: 85 minutes