It simply defies belief that Golden Globe voters failed to nominate Danielle Deadwyler for a Best Actress award for her performance in this all-too-relevant biopic about activist Mamie Till-Bradley (as she was then), whose son was the victim of a notorious lynching in the American South. It will be an outrage if Academy members make the same mistake.
It’s 1955 and 14 year-old Emmett (a fantastic Jalyn Hall; sweet, but not too sweet) is desperate to leave Chicago and visit his great-uncle in Mississippi. Mamie reluctantly agrees, warning her son that everything she’s taught him about self-belief needs to be temporarily unlearned. He promises to act “small”, but, having arrived in the tiny town of Money, he holds his head high, chirpily telling a white shopkeeper, Carolyn Bryant (a superb Haley Bennett), that she’s the spit of movie star Hedy Lamarr, before whistling at her, as his appalled cousins gaze on.
