Many movies run from reality. Not “The Hate U Give.”
Shot in Atlanta and starring Amandla Stenberg and Atlanta’s own Algee Smith, “The Hate U Give,” adapted from Angie Thomas’ New York Times best-selling young adult novel of the same name, takes on the major issues of police killings, gun violence and Black Lives Matter directly impacting the black community.
Some of these are issues Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms admitted to affecting her own family as she helped kick off the film’s Atlanta premiere screening at Regal Cinemas Atlantic Station Oct. 3. (The film opened last week in Atlanta ahead of its Oct. 19 national release.)
“It was an opportunity for me to really think about the conversations I’m having with my sons, particularly my 16-year-old son, and just some of the hurt and baggage that our family is still carrying from the murder of my nephew, not at the hands of a police officer, but just the layers of wounds that we have in our community.”
Although told from the lens of Starr Carter (Stenberg), the police murder of her childhood best friend and crush Khalil (Smith) drives the story. The film kicks off with Starr’s father, Maverick (Russell Hornsby), giving “the talk,” instructing Starr, her slightly older half brother Seven and much younger brother Sekani, who are just kids, on how to handle the inevitable police encounters that will plague their lives.
As a teenager, Starr masks the reality of her black Garden Heights community from her white boyfriend Chris (“Riverdale’s” KJ Apa) and best friend Hailey (Sabrina Carpenter) at Williamson, the predominantly white school she and her brothers attend. After Khalil’s murder, where she was the lone witness, becomes a major news headline and the center of a Black Lives Matter-style protest, Starr’s two worlds collide, and she must find her voice.
On the Atlanta red carpet, Stenberg shared that her approach to playing Starr included “trying to honor the book as much as possible” and “taking pieces from my own life in ways that kind of related because I had kind of a parallel experience growing up in a black community and going to a school that’s predominantly white cross town.” She also was concerned about “trying to honor the lives of those who have been killed by police, who have been killed by gun violence.”
The film and Stenberg’s Starr resonated strongly with 15-year-old Shianna Franklin, who watched alongside her Benjamin E. Mays High School classmates who were happy to see their school as Williamson on the big screen. Taken by Franklin’s sobbing throughout the film, Mississippi rapper and Atlanta resident David Banner closed out his last post-screening Q&A with Stenberg; the film’s director, George Tillman Jr.; the book’s author, Angie Thomas (also a Mississippi native); and more, by asking why.
“The whole film was so good because it was filmed in Atlanta, where I was born and raised. It’s the only place I’ve ever known,” she tearfully explained. “… this is where we originate from, this is where we found love, this is where we learned to walk, we learned how to talk, we made relationships and friendships and stuff, so for them to film it here, it was really special to me personally.” Franklin also added how she preached the film’s message of finding and using your voice to her younger siblings.
This appeal to young people is precisely why director Tillman, who has a 15-year-old son, signed on. “It’s been a while since we really tapped into a young audience,” he said during early press rounds alongside Thomas at the Ritz-Carlton downtown. For him, the story “felt very youthful but (also) very honest and true.”
Smith, 23, who grew up in Atlanta, spoke to the story’s timeliness and how real his character Khalil’s fate is for him. “I’m definitely a young black man in America, and that can happen to me at any time,” he said, co-signed by his co-stars Lamar Johnson (Seven), 24, and TJ Wright (Sekani), 10. “It can happen to any of my brothers at any time.”
Inspired by the iconic late rapper (and onetime familiar Atlanta presence) Tupac’s T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E. — The Hate U Give Little Infants (Expletive) Everybody — philosophy, Thomas digs at the structural realities that dog Starr’s life. Pleased with the film and Stenberg, Thomas hopes it “creates a lot of conversations” and “empowers a new generation of young people, and even older people, to find their voices.”
IN THEATERS
“The Hate You Give”
Starring: Russell Hornsby, Regina Hall, Amandla Stenberg, Anthony Mackie, Issa Rae and Common. Directed by George Tillman Jr.
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements, some violence, drug material and strong language. At metro theaters. 2 hours, 12 minutes.
About the Author
