THE HATE U GIVE

This should be on everybody's best movies of 2018 list. It's at the top of mine. It should be among the nominations of all the movie award shows for best movie of the year and should win a few. GREEN BOOK was a feel good look about race relations in this country from the perspective of a "white" man, and we sure do need feel good movies in these times, but we also need, or at least I do, works of art that express clearly and directly the perspective of "black" people dealing with racism of all kinds, and THE HATE U GIVE does that almost perfectly.

George Tillman Jr.'s direction of Aubrey Wells adaptation of Angie Thomas's novel brings an original vision to an, unfortunately, old story. The cast is superb, especially young Amandla Stenberg who plays the lead character with so many levels of emotion and expression, it's like a lesson in how to carry a movie as its star. And Regina Hall and Russell Hornsby as her parents could carry another movie on their own.

I cry a lot watching movies, but only a few times in my life have I been brought to sobbing. Watching THE HATE U GIVE was one of those times.