This New York-set drama from 2020 was directed by Lanie Zipoy who died last year aged 49; it was on the ball in grappling with Black Lives Matter themes of systemic racism and white liberal guilt. The Subject poses thorny questions about the ethics of documenting marginalised black communities and what constitutes rightful representation – but proceeds at a dogged pace more suited to the stage (it’s written by playwright Chisa Hutchinson) and is perhaps a little too crude in setting up the character assassination of its hypocritical protagonist.
American Pie’s Jason Biggs plays Phil Waterhouse, an award-winning documentary director feted for his harrowing latest work, whose subject, wannabe gang member Malcolm (Nile Bullock), was beaten to death in front of the camera. Phil has reaped the benefits: a swanky apartment, where he cosies up with Latina girlfriend Jess (Anabelle Acosta), and a burgeoning career with a major TV series about ghetto life on the way. He seems smoothly post-racial, kicking it with the corner boys and extolling the superiority of “real” bodega coffee. But he has a self-flagellating secret: obsessively watching footage of Malcolm, stung by a blogger’s accusation that he failed in his film-maker’s duty of care.
Phil’s failure to intervene seems to stem from an aesthete’s purism that keeps him at a safe remove from the difficult lives he documents. As he explains to Malcolm: “I like the idea that art is just happening all round. And I wanted to be where the art is unfolding.” Just as Phil is dimly aware that this lays him open to charges of exploiting his subjects, Zipoy walks a fine line between diagnosing this issue and indulging moral agonies that are also a rich person’s luxury. Straining to set Phil up as someone due to be taken down a peg, Zipoy allows the tone to get scattered, with a couple of scenes straight out of a cheesy romcom, and maladroitly deployed thriller elements, as someone begins surreptitiously recording his life.
Fortunately, there is an indignant stampede of a third act when the intruder is revealed – although Biggs, a dab hand at sexual embarrassment, doesn’t bag Phil’s mixture of entitlement, denial, self-protective rage and abjection in a visceral enough way to suggest that these are the forces that are, in the real world, still blocking racial equality. The Subject goes long on its thesis statement about white privilege, but doesn’t cut to the quick like Get Out.
• The Subject is available online on 20 February.
