THUGLIFE
A review of The Hate U Give by Jessica Anthony and Ananya Hindocha
The Hate U Give pulls no punches. It is an unvarnished honest depiction of the very real issue of police brutality against black men. The movie is gut-wrenching, tear-jerking, and thought-provoking; masterfully tackling issues such as oppression, systemic and cyclical poverty, and the different veils of racism.
The movie, based on the award-winning Angie Thomas novel of the same title, follows Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg), a young black girl who witnesses a childhood friend, Khalil Harris (Algee Smith), get shot by a white police officer after getting pulled over for an arbitrary traffic violation.
Starr’s life seemingly falls apart after the shooting. Not only does she have to deal with frequent police harassment, but her family is targeted by the King Lords, a prominent drug gang in her city of Garden Heights. Due to all of these extraneous pressures, Starr is hesitant to speak up about the shooting. Her family is also split, with some encouraging her to speak up, like her father (Russell Hornsby), and others, most prominently her mother (Regina Hall), telling her to stay quiet to keep her family safe.
As she struggles with the pressures in Garden Heights, she also has to put on her “Starr Version Two” mask on when she goes to Williamson, her majority white private school in a different town. Here, she struggles with feeling accepted and is constantly adjusting herself not to seem “too ghetto.” One of her biggest struggles at Williamson is with one of her best friends, Hailey (Sabrina Carpenter), who constantly says racist things without offering any apologies, even after she is called out on it.
Prior to the shooting, Starr keeps her worlds separate and struggles to juggle her two alternate identities. When Khalil is shot, the media becomes focused on her community, and her two worlds collide, leaving her to figure out who she really is. Her struggle is emphasized as she runs smack into the reality of being a young person of color torn between two worlds.
The beginning of the movie feels almost like a typical teen movie, with a nostalgic voiceover as Starr recounts her life. The dialogue is cheesy and endearing, and the romance is so in-your-face you can’t help but root for them. Everything changes, though, in the scene of the white police officer shooting Khalil. The movie grinds to a sudden halt as the fun voiceover and soundtrack drop out, and the tone of the movie shifts suddenly. Everything about it is scarily realistic and audiences are forced to reckon with the truth in the events depicted on screen.
The audience can only helplessly watch Khalil stop breathing while a handcuffed Starr begs the officer to “do something.” A part of the scene is shot from the view of a police dashboard cam, pushing audiences to recount similar real-life tragedies. Scenes regarding protests and riots show the government’s barbaric response to the community’s attempt to peacefully protest. The protest scenes truly coerce the viewer into absorbing the passionate feelings of anger and betrayal felt by the people of Garden Heights.
As the story moves along, pressures mount in the community as anger escalates against the police force because of its seeming lack of interest in investigating the officer who shot Khalil. Meanwhile, Starr deals with emotional trauma, all the while trying to hide the situation from people so that she wouldn’t be outed as the witness to the shooting to stay out of gang conflicts and ensure that people at her school don’t treat her differently. Her need to speak up eventually pushes her to do a TV interview, as long as her face and voice are distorted to protect her identity. As the news spreads and her community begin to suspect that it is Starr, more people begin threatening her and her family. In the end, both the King Lords and the police force both brutalize the family.
The story is poignant and emotional, never holding back to show what something like a police shooting can do to truly fragment a community already so fragile. It builds to a point where everything seems to come full circle, and the central message of the narrative comes back in a haunting way.
“THUGLIFE – The Hate U Give Little Infants F—s Everyone”: this Tupac song is what both the book and the movie get their title from and is something that we see underscored again and again. The characters emphasize how growing up with so much hate, especially directed towards children, is what pushes communities to a vicious cycle they can’t seem to break out of. A scene very close to the end emphasizes this in an unforgettable manner, as we see how the pressures and hate in Garden Heights pushes Starr’s seven-year-old brother to threaten King with a gun.
While the narrative eventually resolves itself at the end of the movie, the message is one that stays with you. The film so closely mirrors what we are so used to seeing on television that it’s portrayal is a haunting recreation that forces you to rethink what is right and wrong. The Hate U Give certainly isn’t for the faint of heart, but sometimes we need to be pushed out of our comfort zone.