{"id":7286,"date":"2019-04-20T10:34:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-20T14:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7286"},"modified":"2019-04-20T10:51:32","modified_gmt":"2019-04-20T14:51:32","slug":"review-fast-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7286","title":{"rendered":"Review: FAST COLOR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Julia Hart\u2019s lean, dramatic sci-fi breaks the mold.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Moody and atmospheric, \u201cFast Color\u201d is a subtle superhero movie shrouded in a post-apocalyptic mask. Its small, deliberate narrative is set in an X-Men \u201cLogan\u201d like universe, a world plagued by water shortages. Onto this arid landscape, we meet Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a woman in anguish, who has some sort of undefined superhuman ability. Ruth is on the run, and periodically, she has uncontrolled seizures that result in potentially dangerous earthquakes.

After encountering a mysterious man named Bill (Christopher Denham), Ruth returns home to her mother Bo (Lorraine Toussaint), who has been caring for Ruth\u2019s daughter Lila (Saniyya Sidney). Like Ruth, Lila has abilities, but unlike Ruth, Lila can control them. And under Bo\u2019s watch, those abilities have been sharpened. It\u2019s now up to Bo to help the troubled Ruth reign in her unique powers.

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Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the troubled Ruth.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A family drama with superhero elements, \u201cFast Color\u201d is a quality production that would be interesting without any science fiction story threads. And while Mbatha-Raw is the star here, Toussaint is the heart of the movie. And it helps that she is able to act opposite a typically giving and sensitive David Strathairn, who is careful to give her space. It is as if the role was written for Toussaint, as she provides the all-knowing, motherly foundation upon which the entire film rests.

It\u2019s this solid underpinning that allows the young Sidney to shine as Lila. And it makes every decision by Mbatha-Raw seem more credible. Three generations of women are on display, and they form a tight, believable family unit, dealing with world-changing circumstances.

And what are they dealing with? I\u2019ll be careful not to spoil it. Although this isn\u2019t exactly hard science-fiction, it\u2019s still of the heady and intellectual variety, if, also, a bit ambiguous. Denham plays some kind of scientist, attached to some team, possibly governmental, looking for Ruth. We get some of the context through this character, but the details are guarded, which never frustrated me. It\u2019s clear that Ruth\u2019s abilities may offer a dry and dying world hope. And there is room for a sequel that will explain more.

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Lorraine Toussaint performance is a standout.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFast Color\u201d is co-written by almost Oscar-winning producer Jordan Horowitz (see \u201cLa La Land\u201d). And Horowitz, whose producing credits are deep, certainly has marshaled adequate resources for this movie. But \u201cFast Color\u201d feels like an indie akin to something like what Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead did with 2017\u2019s \u201cThe Endless.\u201d And part of the charm of lower budgeted fare are the innovative decisions that often produce impactful results.

Therefore, while on one hand \u201cFast Color\u201d might feel like something that would be at home in the Marvel universe, on the other, it\u2019s very much a movie that relishes its indie roots. And because the story is so focused and relatively small, it manages to one-up similar and larger films like Jeff Nichols good, but not completely successful 2016 movie \u201cMidnight Special.\u201d \u201cFast Color\u201d will hit you as the big moments bring weight to its emotional conclusion. I was moved, and I saw the colors.

Small, but ambitious, \u201cFast Color\u201d provides a template for the future of indie sci-fi, amid the wild, ultra-budgeted glut of comic book adaptations.

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Indie sci-fi film succeeds by staying focused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1440,1194,1435,1438,1437,1436,1439,1441,103,104],"class_list":["post-7286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-christopher-denham","tag-david-strathairn","tag-fast-color","tag-gugu-mbatha-raw","tag-jordan-horowitz","tag-julia-hart","tag-lorraine-toussaint","tag-saniyya-sidney","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7286"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7296,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7286\/revisions\/7296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}