Review: 'Fruitvale Station', Starring Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer

 

It's impossible to escape the contentious, racially divided powder keg that Ryan Coogler's incredibly powerful Fruitvale Station enters. The similarities between the story it depicts, that of slain 22-year-old Oscar Grant, and the current Trayvon Martin case are inescapable and add a level of heartbreaking poignancy to a story that would be dramatic even if it were a work of fiction. Fuzzy video camera footage depicts the scene of the event without delving into the simple facts surrounding it. On New Year's Day 2009, Oscar, his girlfriend, and a handful of friends were detained by BART cops at the Fruitvale Station metro stop after a brief altercation with passengers. While seated and handcuffed, Oscar was suddenly shot in the back while on-lookers screamed in horror and filmed it on their cellphone cameras. The cop claimed to have mistaken his gun for a Taser, and subsequently got off with a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Whether justice was truly served isn't really the point of the story Coogler is telling, and nor should it be. By framing the film in such a way, showing us the ultimate end of Grant's life, it gives the rest of the story a heightened resonance and an added emotional weight as we walk through his final day. In a breakthrough performance showing a subtlety and nuance far beyond his years, Michael B. Jordan plays Oscar as a man not unlike anybody else. He was someone whose life was riddled with mistakes, those of a criminal nature and others far more personal. His history of dealing drugs landed him in prison, but treating his mother (Octavia Spencer) and fiery girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) with blatant disrespect has him in hot water with the most important women in his life. Straying away from the desire to paint Oscar as a saint, Coogler shows us the true nature of the man, warts and all. He doesn't stray away from Oscar's criminal past, his philandering ways, or his scary outbursts of rage. It's all part of what made Oscar real, and has no bearing at all on his fate. If anything, his desire to change it and prepare for a better future only make watching his final 24 hours all the more painful.

Coogler makes a profound statement by highlighting the ordinary connections Oscar has made with the people closest to him, but also those he meets in those final hours. We see that Oscar is molded and in a way emboldened to be better by the constant presence of strong female presences. Sophina is a firecracker, who loves and sticks by him despite his flaws. His mother Wanda seems to recognize the typical fate for troubled black men, and only wants Oscar to shape up and get his life in order. We also see the positive change in Oscar when in the embrace of his daughter. She is clearly his hope, his heart, his reason for being, and the joyous moments he has with her are tinged with an ominous portentous quality. At the same time, we see that Oscar isn't completely naive to his situation, but he doesn't let issues like race stop him from helping a pretty white girl in need of assistance (she turns up later at a crucial point), and he's more than willing to lend aid to a pregnant couple. Coogler shows that every time Oscar opens up his heart and lets others in, the possibilities for him are endless, which also makes his senseless death all the more devastating.

As confident as Coogler's feature debut is, he makes a few choices that dip into heavy-handedness, and strike at the story's authenticity. Coogler worked closely with Oscar's family, so it's likely the scenes involving them are accurate for the most part. But others smack of emotional manipulation, and give off a sweet and saintly vibe that most of the film largely avoids. Coogler, a Bay Area native who was clearly hit hard by the incident, embellishes certain scenes in a purely Hollywood way. In one particular instance, Oscar is suddenly offered the perfect solution to all of his problems, while given sage advice from a random character that would change the course of his entire life. It's at times like these that you feel Coogler losing a bit of control and letting the hand of fiction take over. It doesn't happen often, and doesn't totally blunt the emotional impact of what is to come, but it can't be ignored either.

It's tough to do justice to a person's entire life in just a couple of hours, but that's what Coogler has achieved for Oscar Grant in Fruitvale Station. Not unlike Spike Lee's 25th Hour, we're taken on an unforgettable journey through the final 24 hours in a man's life, and discover that his worth is measured not in the things he did wrong, but in the lives he was able to touch along the way.