Luce: The Answer Isn't Black or White

If you watched a lot of network television in the 80’s and 90’s, then you’re probably familiar with a concept called the “Very Special Episode”, where a normally lighthearted show (usually family sitcoms) would take an abruptly serious tone shift in order to teach the audience a lesson about serious topics like drug and alcohol abuse, stranger danger, racism and even sexual assault. They’re not nearly as common as they once were, mostly because they’ve been the subject of ridicule for trying to offer concise, clean-cut solutions to complicated subject matter with no easy answer. It’s precisely because of this that Luce, a psychodrama that tackles a myriad of complex topics but offers no simple solutions, feels so refreshing.

Our story follows Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a black teenager who was raised as a child soldier in a war-torn African nation, but is given a new lease on life after he’s adopted by a white couple (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) and brought to America. Since then, he’s completely turned his life around. He’s a star athlete, a model student, and is beloved by peers and teachers alike. But one day, his history teacher Harriet (Octavia Spencer) makes a horrifying discovery. He writes a paper advocating for violence against political opponents, and to make matters worse, a bag full of illegal fireworks are found in his locker. Luce’s parents are understandably in denial and do everything they can to defend him, which becomes harder as more evidence comes pouring in and the already antagonistic relationship between Luce and Harriet becomes more hostile.

To say this film is topical would be underselling it. In a time where America suffers a mass shooting nearly every day, often telegraphed by the shooter writing a manifesto declaring its radical worldview, and the tightening scrutiny of black people by the police, it’s hard not to see why a film like this would need to be made. Director Julian Onah, who rebounds here after his career got off to a rocky start with The Cloverfield Paradox, provides an uncomfortably real situation to life where there are no easy answers, no easy solutions, and no one is exactly who they say they are.

In the paper that sets the plot in motion, Luce writes in the voice of Frantz Fanon, a pan-African philosopher who famously argued that violence was a necessary component in the fight against tyranny. This understandably sets off a few alarm bells, and combined with his troubled upbringing, makes him look like a radical in the making. But aside from Harriet, the rest of the faculty is less eager to put the screws on him since he’s become a poster boy for the school’s successes, and don’t want to tarnish that reputation. While Luce repeatedly insists that he’s innocent, there was always tension between him and Harriet, who has a take-no-prisoners approach to teaching her students about the propensity of tokenism by singling certain students out for not living up to her expectations. This has led to a female student being outed after she was sexually assaulted at a party, and a promising young athlete getting kicked off the track team and having his chance at a college scholarship jeopardized for smoking weed. (Not coincidentally, both students are minorities.) Likewise, Luce’s parent’s end up in a similar nature vs. nurture conflict since the onus is on them to raise him right. Understandably defensive of their son at first, as the evidence against him piles up, they start to question if there was anything they even could do.

But while the adults are busy pointing fingers at each other, Luce is under the pressure of both this scandal and everyone’s colossal expectations of him. But rather than cracking, he feels somewhat content into slipping into the roles forced onto him. Performances are excellent all around, and while that’s expected when you have the likes of Watts, Roth and Spencer in your cast, it’s Kelvin Harrison Jr. who ends up leaving the most lasting impression. Able to switch between coding on a dime, he slips into the roles of son, student, friend and adversary with nary a hitch, all while maintaining a sinister congeniality that never quite gives away what’s going on in this character’s head. At once frustrated by the various boxes his parents, teachers, and society try to force him in, hungry to right perceived injustices, and maybe a little too eager to exact revenge on those who put him in this conundrum, Luce remains an enigma, a question mark trying to straighten himself into an exclamation point.

At the end of the day, Luce feels more like a film that’s meant to be discussed than enjoyed. That persistent vagueness may be a sticking point for some looking for clear cut answers, but if there is any lesson to take away from this, it’s that there aren’t always clear-cut answers, defined good guys or bad guys for us to extract catharsis from. This ambiguity will probably be the defining factor that’ll make this movie relieving or maddening for the audience, but it’s a necessary one nevertheless.

8/10