Luce, a former child soldier, gets a new lease on life in the USA when he was 10, his adoptive parents Amy and Peter Edgar (Watts and Roth, reunited after their bloody ordeal in Michael Haneke's FUNNY GAMES, 2007) sacrifice the chance of birthing their own child to raise him proper (after years of psychological adjustment), and have deep faith in Luce's worthiness.
But Harriet Wilson (Spencer), Luce's history teacher, always keeps a weather eye on him, a martinet with her own familial problem (it is a cliché Wilson is designated as a lonesome spinster saddled with an unhinged sister), she confiscates a bag of illegal fireworks hidden in Luce's locker after receiving Luce's assignment which problematically espouses the radical revolutionary Frantz Fanon. Afterwards she informs Amy and one thing leads to another, doubt arises, tension escalates and duplicity prevails.
However, the film keeps us dithering in this Wilson versus Luce tug-of-war, key information is implied, but the whole picture remains murky. Luce's upstanding veneer starts to peel off, he is vindictive, manipulative and a pathological liar, but is it just a normal teenager's foibles or something more sinister? Courtesy to Harrison's chameleonic impressions, he can be quite spine-tingling, beaming with a broad smile, without dissimulating affectation, but also in total earnest when he pleads with Amy, or goes toe to toe with a stern Wilson like a wronged kid or shooting veiled threat in subtle inflection, Luce's complexity completely surpasses our expectation and wrong-foots Amy and Peter. So when an irrefutable evidence proves Luce's culpability, it is his parents' turn to decide what is the right thing to do, yet Onah and his co-screenwriter JCLee choose not to vouchsafe them a moral high ground, Amy and Peter already have too much invested in their bargain of political correctness, their noble act cannot be a failed experiment, in for a penny, in for a pound, their family tie cannot be severed by mere ethics.
As a result, Wilson is left as the victim who doesn't get her justice served, Onah might be applauded of defying stereotypes of an upstanding black male teenage, but obviously he throws Wilson, a full-figured, righteous, middle-aged black woman under the bus, the gender discrimination is too tenacious to dispel, and it is not just within the African-America sphere, the casual typecast of an Asian slut, it is incumbent on Amy to instigate the parent's complicity, and she is the one who should feel upset for ruining Peter's chance to be a “real” father, should I continue?
However, it is Spencer who comes to LUCE's rescue. Even fighting a losing battle, Spencer reassures us that Wilson will not end up like a miserable loser, she is all fire and spark, erring on the side of being right, she is a heroine manqué, but her assertion of what is wrong with USA can really hit a raw nerve, and Spencer is spectacular to watch, you don't messy with her, her Wilson is not faultless, but most of the time, she is the smartest person in the room.
If plot contrivances are conspicuous, and the intermittent aural assault of heavy bass can be deafening, LUCE, for what it is worth, still comes through as a strong piece of dramaturgic treatise which compellingly delves into the intricacies of America's hot-button racial issue, at the very least, it proffers us some insightful food for thought, does Luce mean light or Lucifer?
referential entries: Michael Haneke's FUNNY GAMES (2007, 6.7/10); Garth Davis' LION (2016, 7.1/10).
Title: Luce
Year: 2019
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Director: Julius Onah
Screenwriters: Julius Onah, JC Lee
based on the play by JC Lee
Music: Geoff Barrow, Ben Salisbury
Cinematography: Larkin Seiple
Editing: Madeleine Gavin
Cast:
Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Naomi Watts
Octavia Spencer
Tim Roth
Noah Gaynor
Astro
Andrea Bang
Marsha Stephanie Blake
Norbert Leo Butz
Rating: 7.1 /10
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