Stephan James delivers a brilliant performance as the protagonist—a 30-year-old who has spent half his life in prison—in a drama that possesses a profound understanding of the pathways of both injustice and self-sabotage.
A dozen years ago, at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, I sat in the Eccles Theater and watched *Fruitvale* (later retitled *Fruitvale Station*), Ryan Coogler’s fact-based drama about Oscar Grant, a young man shot and killed by Bay Area police despite having committed no crime. When the film ended, everyone in the room knew we had witnessed something truly extraordinary—and that Coogler was a natural-born filmmaker. When he took the stage, he was exultant; grateful for the audience’s response, yet one could also sense—as his words flowed unchecked—that he was already brimming with stories he was eager to tell. For a viewer (or a critic), this constitutes the Sundance dream: walking into a film knowing absolutely nothing about it, and two hours later, having witnessed the birth of a filmmaker—perhaps even a great one.
Director: Rashad Frett
Writers: Lin Que Ayoung, Rashad Frett
Today, I experienced a similar range of emotions as I sat, once again, in the Eccles to watch *Ricky*, Rashad Frett’s drama about a young man from East Hartford, Connecticut, named Ricardo Smith (Stephan James), who has just been released from prison and struggles to find his footing in a world that seems riddled with pitfalls.
The easy way to craft a social justice drama about an incarcerated man attempting to turn his life around is to simply demonstrate that the system is stacked against him. The hard way—the approach that proves searingly truthful and artistically sophisticated—is to demonstrate how the system is designed as an uphill climb—sometimes unfairly so—while also dramatizing the various layers of self-sabotage that may be intrinsically encoded within a person’s actions. By proceeding in this manner, one is not merely creating a drama about victimization; one is constructing a drama of a moral nature—and that is precisely what Rashad Frett manages to capture in *Ricky*.
Frett—let me put it bluntly—has it all: an innate gift for rhythm, tension, and atmosphere; for portraying violence that can erupt out of nowhere or after a slow, internal simmer; a sixth sense for knowing where to place the camera, ensuring the film constantly draws the eye with a sinuous, shifting, and voyeuristic intimacy; the gift for staging a scene in three dimensions, making every character vibrate with their own complex motivations; and the ability to interweave hope, despair, anger, and decency in a way that—while remaining true to the rawness of contemporary life—resonates with the style of Old Hollywood filmmakers. *Ricky* is a film that delves into the depths while simultaneously uplifting the spirit with honesty.
When we first meet Ricardo—known as Ricky—he has been out of prison for barely a few weeks. A less imaginative director might have taken half an hour just to lay out the basic facts of his past. But Frett—much like the filmmakers of the 1970s—is so committed to creating a believable texture that he does not stop to explain things. Instead, he paints Ricky’s backstory stroke by stroke, as if it were a painting coming to life right before our eyes.
Ricky himself is not one to explain what is going on inside him. He is quiet and somewhat surly—an introvert, not prone to voicing his thoughts, even when the situation demands it. Early on, he flouts protocol on several occasions: he arrives late to an appointment with his parole officer and skips a meeting—a sort of "Twelve-Step" session for ex-offenders—that he is required to attend. He makes it clear to us that he has no desire to return to prison. Some time passes before we begin to piece together what happened to him: how he robbed a store alongside his friend Terrence (Sean Nelson) when he was barely 15 years old; how, following Terrence’s instructions, he shot the cashier; and how, ultimately, he shouldered the entire blame, going to prison for attempted murder. He was a 15-year-old boy thrown into jail alongside violent criminals. (The film makes no explicit statement regarding the implicit racism in this; it doesn't need to.)
We can barely imagine what Ricky had to endure, and *Ricky* doesn't ask us to. But it shows us what Ricky has become: a blunted soul—someone who lacks not only the skills to navigate life outside the walls, but also the very capacity to do so. He has grown up learning to view everyone with suspicion, always on the defensive, always assuming the worst; that is how he managed to survive. He needs to learn a completely new way of being, and the film does not make that seem any easier.
Frett crafts an ensemble of characters that form an imperfect community—one that feels as if it were plucked straight from real life. The filmmaker is of Caribbean-American descent and grew up in Hartford (a city home to a vibrant Caribbean community); by drawing his story from this milieu, he breathes life into a world with which we can truly connect: Ricky’s mother (Simbi Kali), an "Old World" woman of radiant severity who has lived in torment throughout the years her son was taken from her; his brother, James (Maliq Johnson), an impulsive young man willing to help Ricky—provided it doesn't require too much effort on his part; Cheryl (Andrene Ward-Hammond), a disheveled ex-convict he meets at his Twelve-Step meetings—a woman who appears sympathetic and welcoming, until we discover a side of her so unstable that she ends up ruining everything; and, in a performance of unwavering perfection that proves immensely gratifying for the audience, Sheryl Lee Ralph as Joanne—Ricky’s parole officer and an old comrade of his mother (at least, until she was cast out of the church due to her sexuality)—who takes it upon herself to whip Ricky into shape with the authority of an unyielding judge, channeling the spirit of Louis Gossett Jr. in *An Officer and a Gentleman*.
*Ricky* features a story that flows organically, refusing to submit to the tyranny of the "narrative arcs" so typical of independent cinema. To successfully reintegrate into society, Ricky must hold down a job and steer clear of drugs, criminals, and trouble. And at every turn, the film demonstrates just how incredibly difficult that task proves to be. It is not due to any single specific reason, but rather to the karma of generational trauma. Lacking a driver's license, Ricky must go everywhere on foot through Hartford, trudging laboriously across long distances with his red T-shirt slung over his shoulder. However, he desperately wants a car, and when Mr. Torino (Titus Welliver) offers to sell him his own, he cannot resist. There are too many things he cannot resist.
As a cinematic work, *Ricky* never takes shortcuts or opts for the easy way out. It approaches—with dizzying realism—what is at stake in every decision Ricky makes. Yet, our desire to see him succeed in a world where the odds have been stacked against him—due to his immigrant background (his father was deported), a pop culture that glamorizes crime, and his own mistakes—is palpable. Rashad Frett knows that there is no contradiction whatsoever between telling a story that grips us to the very end and doing so with searing honesty. That is the definition of a natural-born filmmaker.
Comments
Post a Comment