The Hate U Give

Based on the wildly popular bestseller by Angie Thomas, "The Hate U Give" is a riveting cry for social justice that never fails to understand the multileveled complexities of race relations in this country while also examining the complexities of love, friendship and family.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) juggles more than her fair share of the duplicities of high school life. She has two distinctly different groups of friends, the kids she grew up with in her poor and predominantly black neighborhood and the friends she goes to school with at her wealthy and predominantly white, private prep school.

The boys she's interested in match their milieus. Chris (K. J. Apa) is her cluelessly colorblind white boyfriend and Khalil Harris (Algee Smith) is the wildly charming bad-boy who claims the title of "first great love of her life." But before Khalil has a chance to come back into her life and stake a claim in her heart, he is gunned down by a white police officer, and Starr is witness to the whole ordeal.

As if the horror of seeing her friend shot is not trauma enough, she deals with many public pressures. Her conscience wants her to speak out, while Khalil's irreputable employer, the neighborhood drug lord (Anthony Mackie), wants her to shut up. And everything comes to a riotous head when a grand jury fails to indict the white officer.

In spite of a number of predictions and high critical acclaim, "The Hate U Give" was looked over at this years Academy Awards, and there are probably multiple reasons for this. First of all, this story is more than a little controversial. The original YA novel has been called "pervasively vulgar," and many members of law enforcement view the film as "indoctrinating" mistrust in the police. Second, critics and the Academy have not favored director George Tillman Jr. and screenplay writer Audrey Wells from their work in the past.

Nevertheless, Stenberg is benevolent, compelling and completely sympathetic, the material is thought provoking and the relationships are complex. Just because it isn't an awards contender doesn't mean it isn't good.
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This Blu-ray disc includes extended scenes and a number of featurettes, as well as a gallery and an audio commentary with the director and several of the actors.

"The Hate U Give"
Blu-ray $29.95
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