Native Son had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2019, and was released in the United States on April 6, 2019, by HBO Films.
Plot
Bigger Thomas is a young African-American man living with his family in Chicago. One day, Bigger receives an opportunity to interview for a job as the live-in chauffeur for the wealthy businessman Henry Dalton and his family. Bigger's friend Jack wants Bigger to participate in a robbery with him instead, but Bigger's girlfriend Bessie convinces him to take the interview. The interview with Mr. Dalton goes successfully, and Bigger is introduced to Mrs. Dalton and Mary, Mr. Dalton's radical daughter.
That night, Bigger drives Mary to a political meeting led by her boyfriend, Jan Erlone. Afterward, Jan and Mary take Bigger out to a local club that Bigger frequents, and the three become friends. As Bigger grows closer to Jan and Mary, he has a falling out with Jack. Bigger failed to show up for the robbery he promised he would participate in, leaving Jack to abandon it. Jack accuses Bigger of succumbing to the stereotypes he himself had shown disdain for. After attending an orchestra with Mary and Jan, Bigger retreats to his room to find an expensive album he had wished to purchase gifted to him by Mary. In thanks, Bigger obtains drugs for Mary and Jan to take at a party.
At the party, Mary and Jan get into an argument after Jan discovers Mary making out with another guy. Bigger drives Mary home and goes to his room. However Mary, who is experiencing strong side effects from the drugs, is dancing around outside half-dressed and shouting. Bigger, fearing he will lose his job if Mary is discovered like this by her parents, helps Mary to her room. Mrs. Dalton is awakened by the noise and begins to call out to Mary. Bigger attempts to calm Mary down to no avail and proceeds to hold a pillow over her face to stop the noise. After Mrs. Dalton returns to her room, Bigger discovers that he has accidentally smothered Mary to death. He then drags Mary's body to the furnace room and cremates it.
The next day, Bigger is interviewed by two detectives who have been hired by Mr. Dalton to find his missing daughter. Jan, however, is initially the prime suspect in Mary's disappearance until one of Mary's pieces of jewelry is found in the furnace by another of Mr. Dalton's staff. As police put out a warrant for Bigger's arrest, he goes into hiding. He privately meets up with Jan, who tells Bigger that he should turn himself in. Similarly, Bessie, who has been hiding Bigger, pleads with him to turn himself in too. Bigger convinces Bessie to run away with him instead, and takes her to an abandoned building where they spend the night.
The next morning, Bessie and Bigger have an argument in which Bigger indirectly confesses to murdering Mary. Upon further argument, Bigger begins to strangle Bessie to death but comes to his senses and stops himself. Bessie runs away in fear. The police arrive, having been alerted to Bigger's whereabouts by some passersby who spotted Bigger looking out a window of the building. The police confront Bigger, who is turned away with his hands in his jacket pockets. Turning around, Bigger begins to take his hands out of his pockets. The police shoot and kill him, mistakenly believing that he had a gun in his hand.
This version of Bigger has, as described by Troy Patterson of The New Yorker, "goth black" nail polish and "toxic green" dyed hair.[2] He additionally wears jackets with patches and graffiti-like designs.[3] The character enjoys reading Ralph Ellison books and is able to teach himself material.[4] Soraya Nadia McDonald, in an article in The Undefeated, described Bigger here as "afropunk".[3]
Patterson argued that this Bigger is "a bit adrift", "serious and cerebral", and "a late adolescent at loose ends" instead of the "thoughtless lunk" and "social problem" in the original novel.[2] Anna Shechtman of The New Yorker wrote that the 2019 Bigger has a "confident style" stemming from Ellison and that this Bigger "has an assuredness that Wright, Love, and even the character that Wright originally wrote seemed to lack."[4] In the film Bessie describes Bigger as "a fixer upper", reflecting that he has issues to work on.[2]
Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein compose the film score. The soundtrack will be released at Milan Records.
Johnson removed Bigger raping Bessie partly because of issues involving sexual assault occurring in the 2010s. He also removed Bessie's death because having her survive would "give Bigger an opportunity to be both complicated and (empathetic) simultaneously, and that was just a step off of a cliff that didn't allow us to tell the story in a (contemporary) way that we thought would facilitate conversation."[13]
Release
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2019,[14][15] Prior to, HBO Films acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film.[16] It was released on April 6, 2019.[17]
Reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 60% based on 50 reviews, with an average of 6.1/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Native Son's struggles with its problematic source material are uneven but overall compelling, thanks largely to Ashton Sanders' poised work in the central role."[18] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[19]
Benjamin Lee of The Guardian gave the film four of five stars, calling it "darkly compelling" with a "spellbinding performance", though he criticized it for not having "some connectivity between dramatic events".[20]
Owen Glieberman of Variety wrote that the film works well in the first half, but that it is constrained by the novel's turns of events in the second half.[21]
Troy Patterson, writing in The New Yorker, argues that the development of the film shows that the original text is out of date and is flawed.[2]
McDonald criticized this film for omitting the killing of Bigger's girlfriend as that plot point could have been used to explore domestic violence in African-American communities. In this version Bigger begins choking Bessie but ultimately does not complete the act, and he does not attempt to rape Bessie.[3]
Native Son (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s.
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