The Trayvon Martin incident stirred such outrage recently that any film released in its aftermath might be expected to incite a similar amount of anger. “Fruitvale Station,” this year’s Sundance Audience Award winner, depicts a similar incident that occurred in the Bay Area on New Year’s Eve in 2008. Although deeply rooted in racial roots and the plight of America’s working class, Ryan Coogler’s debut film invokes empathy and solemnity over political fervor.
“Fruitvale Station” is pure melodrama, a biopic of a man wrongly murdered at the BART train station after a misunderstanding with the police, some racial profiling and a cop too loose on his trigger finger. In an opening cell phone video of the actual event, we see police berating some not exactly docile black men. One of them stands and is pinned to the ground with the cop appearing to drive his knee into the back of the man’s skull. People on the train shout, “That’s not right man!” and “Let him go!” before a gun shot goes off and the video cuts to black.
One wonders what exactly happened on the day George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin. And yet something like this shows that there is still some ambiguity.
Coogler’s film taps into that nuance and makes a slice of life profile of a man, 22-year-old Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), who wasn’t quite a saint and might’ve even provoked his killer, but probably didn’t deserve this fate either.
It’s not as though Oscar’s life is riddled with tragedy or a fine example of how racism is alive and well. Coogler depicts little more than the day in the life of this man, and to see how ordinary and unsuspecting “Fruitvale Station” is provides the key to its power.
On this New Year’s Eve, Oscar starts with foreboding New Year’s resolutions speaking of forever, just one of the film’s too heavy clues that things will go wrong. And yet we are effortlessly introduced into the challenges and struggles in Oscar’s life. He’s been caught cheating on his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) but has devoted his love to her and her daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal).
Having just been fired from his job, he resorts to dealing pot, but ends up dumping his entire stash in the ocean out of fear of returning to prison. Instead, he focuses his efforts on preparing for his mother Wanda’s (Octavia Spencer) birthday dinner. For the most part, this resembles a normal day.
One of the richest little details of “Fruitvale Station” comes when Oscar selects a birthday card for his mother. His sister has instructed him to not get a “white card,” and he intentionally selects the most token white card he can find. It’s his little joke, but for someone like me, it likely wouldn’t even be a thought to cross my mind. It’s a simple reminder that although racism isn’t always an issue in Oscar’s life, race itself is never absent. It rears its head when he flirts with a white woman at the grocery store, when it flashes back to his time in prison and then again on that train platform.
But more positively, race plays a role in the more familial, observational style of Coogler’s camera. Too few films offer this slice of black home life and tradition and still do so without prettifying it.
Jordan’s performance matches “Fruitvale’s” level of nuance. He says “bruh” like it’s a preposition, and yet Jordan never places Oscar into the ghetto or into Sidney Poitier territory with his dialect. It feels naturalistic and honest.
He shines most of all when he shows his care for the young Tatiana. The two have such an undeniable kinship and love, and for all of “Fruitvale Station’s” hazy edges and uncertainties, there ain’t no ambiguity to that.
3 ½ stars