"Luce": review

"Luce" is a 2019 slow-burn thriller directed by Nigerian-American Julius Onah.  It stars Kelvin Harrison, Jr. as the eponymous Luce, a black child adopted by white parents Peter Edgar (Tim Roth) and Amy Edgar (Naomi Watts).  The story revolves around the nature and character of Luce himself:  originally a child soldier from war-torn Eritrea, Luce has an African name, but he is renamed to the more Anglo-pronounceable Luce, which is ultimately derived from Latin (lux) and means "light."  The name has masculine and feminine cognates—Lucy, Luke, Luc, Lucius, Lukas, etc.  It also connotes darkness as well as light, being derived from the same root that gives us Lucifer, the Light-bearer, a.k.a. Satan.  The ambivalence of Luce's name is a direct reflection of the sinister ambiguity of the story that unfolds before us.

We begin with Luce as a high-school senior in northern Virginia (a fictional school called, imaginatively enough, Northern Virginia High School), giving a speech in front of students and adults.  The speech wins him accolades; Luce is on track to be the school valedictorian that academic year, and he is asked to speak at a different event.  Luce is shown as something of a darling—another Obama-in-training.  He is a deft debater as well as an accomplished athlete who trains for several different track-and-field events.  By all appearances, he has put his bellicose past behind him and fully integrated into American society.  He has friends from all over the racial spectrum, including a white friend who disturbingly describes Luce as black, but not "black-black."

Luce is also shown as having a tense relationship with his history teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer).  The drama truly begins when Ms. Wilson reads a paper Luce has written.  The assignment had been to write in the voice of a historical figure, and Luce chose Frantz Fanon, a Marxist-radical, anti-colonialist political philosopher from Martinique who apparently argued that violence is a legitimate means for resolving political differences.  Disturbed by his paper, Ms. Wilson contacts Amy, Luce's adoptive mother, both to talk about the paper and to say that she has had Luce's locker searched.  The search revealed a brown paper bag full of illegal fireworks, which Ms. Wilson presents to Amy in the hopes that she and her husband will talk to Luce about what's up.

The rest of the movie develops and explores the rising tension between Luce and Harriet Wilson.  We discover that Luce had been dating a Komerican girl named Stephanie Kim (Andrea Bang), who may or may not have been sexually assaulted at a drunken party.  It's unclear—at least at first—whether Luce was among the boys who assaulted Stephanie.  The movie also explores the cost of the teacher-student tension both for the Edgars and for Harriet Wilson, who must take care of a mentally ill sister named Rosemary (Marsha Stephanie Blake).  (Rosemary's illness is never identified, but it plays out like acute schizophrenia.*)  Things come to a head when Harriet's house is vandalized, with Nigger Bitch being spray-painted onto the back-facing sliding-glass door.  Harriet suspects Luce, and it doesn't help that, later in the story, the bag of fireworks somehow finds its way back into Harriet's classroom desk, where it spontaneously combusts at night, setting the classroom on fire.

I admit I'm torn about how much more of the plot to reveal.  On the one hand, the movie insists on its ambiguity up to the very end, so in a sense, it would be impossible to spoil the essentials even if I were to reveal the entire plot.  On the other hand, the way the various conflicts play out is so well written and well acted that it would be a shame to map everything out in this review.  Perhaps it's better to hold back, allow you to go watch the film, and let you draw your own conclusions.

The script gets points for developing such complex characters, as well as for being coy, in many instances, about what motivates the characters to act as they do.  Amy, as portrayed by the always-excellent Naomi Watts, is a mother who feels protective of her son, but who also harbors doubts as the evidence seems to mount that her son is guilty of something.  At the same time, this very ambiguity is also a major minus because it's so obviously and self-consciously scripted.  I was strongly reminded of the movie "Doubt," starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams—a movie that also tried hard to walk the fine line between possible interpretations while providing a surfeit of strong emotion.  (My two-word review of "Doubt" is here.  I really ought to go back and do a fuller review.)  Such movies, though, leave viewers in a weird no-man's land in which they can sense the characters are passionate and motivated, all without knowing why.  The core of the story is missing when motivation is deliberately hidden from us.  The question What makes Luce tick? is left unanswered.  Is this a good thing or a bad thing?  That in itself is a meta-ambiguity the film drops in our laps.

I can, however, praise the way the script—which is based on a stage play by JC Lee—handles certain themes and issues, such as race, and specifically the question of racial tokenism.  Much is made about how Luce has risen above his childhood circumstances to become not merely a model student, but a model black student, the implication being that his example is something that other blacks should strive for.  Whatever your own views on these issues, I think you'll agree, after watching "Luce," that the movie deals intelligently with this question while also being balanced enough to allow the airing of a more un-PC perspective (in the form of Luce's adoptive father Peter) without mocking, denigrating, or otherwise judging that point of view.

The acting and direction of "Luce" are both top-notch, but your mileage may vary as to how much you appreciate the movie's self-consciously studious ambiguity.  As British reviewer Mark Kermode said in his assessment of "Luce," the monologue-heavy dialogue is a big clue that the story has been adapted from a stage play.  (This is true of "Doubt" as well—another point that "Luce" and "Doubt" have in common.)  I do think that, despite the attempted ambiguity, the movie does lean in a certain direction when it comes to the question of whether Luce is Luce or Lucifer.  The movie does a great job of ratcheting up the tension; its main characters, perhaps because of their complexity, become difficult to like because of the decisions they make.  At one crucial point, one character finally does something unambiguous and outright lies, a move that has dire consequences later on.

If you're a fan of well-acted, slow-burn thrillers, then I think you'll enjoy "Luce."  Tim Roth and Octavia Spencer both deserve kudos for their performances, as does Kelvin Harrison, Jr., who exudes a bland malice that is possibly reflective of the banality of evil.  If you lean toward the PC end of the spectrum, you might not appreciate the seeming racial politics that appear to manifest by the end of the film.  I saw some black reviewers on YouTube who were genuinely disturbed by what they thought the message of "Luce" was.  Some even wondered aloud as to whether the film ought to be considered a horror movie.  They might have a point.  "Luce" definitely got under my skin and has forced me to chew it over, which isn't something I can say about most of the movies I watch and review.  Recommended.

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*At one point, Harriet asks Rosemary what meds she's on now, and Rosemary says "Clozapine," which is an antipsychotic often used to treat schizophrenia.