Luce review – tough, provocative thriller crackles with tension
Naomi Watts and Tim Roth play adopted parents of a black all-star high schooler accused of nefarious acts in an electrifying, uncomfortable film about racial stereotypes
There are many, many shattering moments in writer-director Julius Onah’s troubling, gripping drama Luce, which premiered at this year’s Sundance and is now showing as part of the Tribeca film festival, but there’s one scene in particular that cuts deepest. The titular character, played by Kelvin Harrison Jr, is a black high schooler adopted by liberal white parents from war-torn Eritrea at the age of seven, where he’d been raised as a child soldier. Years of therapy and rehabilitation have turned him into an all-star triumph, heralded by his predominantly white Virginia high school as a model of black excellence.
But his many achievements have also come at a great price. Luce finds himself existing in a very small and increasingly claustrophobic box, one created for him by the country he now lives in and while it might seem freer than the one forced on to a black schoolmate who’s been labelled a weed-smoking delinquent, it remains a box nonetheless. Luce has to work twice as hard to impress while being given half of the leeway his white friends are allowed. While preparing to give yet another speech to the school, Luce practises in front of an empty auditorium. He talks about his harrowing, violent childhood and how lucky he now is to be living in America, where he can be whomever he wants to be, as tears stream down his face. It’s a gut-punch of a scene, arriving with an almost overwhelming intensity and, importantly, acts as one of the only moments we get to spend alone with Luce.