{"id":7726,"date":"2019-08-16T08:33:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-16T12:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7726"},"modified":"2019-08-16T08:36:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T12:36:10","slug":"review-luce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7726","title":{"rendered":"Review: LUCE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fine performances and provocative questions highlight simmering suburban thriller.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Luce Edgar (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) is the perfect son. A star athlete and straight-A student, he\u2019s on his way to realizing the American dream. Adopted by Amy and Peter (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) from a war-torn nation where he was a child soldier, the struggle to normalize Luce has been relatively without incident. But when history teacher Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer) notices some disturbing material in a paper, she calls Amy in for a parent\/teacher conference. Are Harriet\u2019s concerns valid? Or is she overreacting?

Director Julius Onah (\u201cThe Cloverfield Paradox\u201d) co-writes with playwright J. C. Lee, who adapts his stage play. The result is an experiment in perspective. As Harriet\u2019s accusations hit hard, the Edgar\u2019s become ever more entrenched, and Luce guards his secrets. The lack of communication on display is frustrating, but the script smartly holds back, which deepens the mystery.

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Octavia Spencer plays a concerned teacher.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Any parent who has sat with a teacher and been lectured to about their child\u2019s performance or lack of performance will immediately see themselves in Amy and Peter. However, not all teachers are heavy-handed, and in fact, more often than not, it is the teacher that sees what the loving parents cannot. If there is a failing in \u201cLuce,\u201d it is in not making Harriet more reasonable. Without spoiling the story, things begin to unravel as Harriet pushes more and more into Luce\u2019s life, questioning almost everything he says and does. Race is clearly a factor, but given Luce\u2019s background, there is the nature versus nurture question floating about. Can the killer that he once was ever go away?

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Proud parents (Watts and Roth) confronted with a frightening reality.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Without giving us critical details about Luce\u2019s origin, the audience is left to speculate. There are subtle lines of dialogue that hint at his training as a young boy. And Amy admits that it was their responsibility to mainstream the child. At one point, Peter bemoans the fact that he wanted a child, not a cause. This points out the idea that maybe the responsibility wasn\u2019t to pull a child out of his or her country of origin and make the child one of us. Rather, maybe it is our responsibility to help that child\u2019s nation move away from war and not contribute to the brain drain. A lot rests on Luce\u2019s young shoulders, but the focus of school officials is on investigating where the fireworks in his locker came from.

A film like \u201cLuce\u201d introduces provocative questions, and it is too much for that same film to provide complex answers. If the closing act is a little manipulative, that is the consequence of the restrictions of the feature film running time. This makes \u201cLuce\u201d feel like a pilot episode for a series that you\u2019d see on HBO.

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Kelvin Harrison, Jr,. as Luce.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And, in fact, the similarities to HBO\u2019s \u201cEuphoria\u201d are hard to discount. Kids today have more information available to them than ever before. Figuring out how to get high, what type of sex to engage in, how to write the perfect term paper, how to play Fortnite and make a million are out there on the web in an overwhelming number of variations. And that information is often corrupted with so many half-truths and out-and-out falsehoods. No wonder that some of our young people are become radicalized.

We know the problems, because they are all around us, prioritizing which ones to address first is the key. And that starts with opening our eyes, ears and hearts. Cynically, I guess I\u2019ll take Joe Biden\u2019s advice and Google it. A film like \u201cLuce\u201d has its heart exposed, raising the questions and beckoning us to search for the solutions.

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Dramatic thriller asks: what’s the matter with your perfect kid?<\/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":[1699,665,1698,1697,1700,233,1302,1696],"class_list":["post-7726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-j-c-lee","tag-jr","tag-julius-onah","tag-kelvin-harrison","tag-luce","tag-naomi-watts","tag-octavia-spencer","tag-tim-roth","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7726","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=7726"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7735,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7726\/revisions\/7735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}