Dear White People (2014)

This social satire is about being a black face in a white world. It follows four black Ivy League students and what they go through day to day to either fit in or just be noticed without it dealing with race. They deal with their own demons and dealing with the color of their skin, not only with their white classmates.

The film goes as fair as a militant who is mixed and trying to find herself and where she fits in, her white side or her black side, the token black guy, who happens to be gay, the daddy's boy, doing everything his father wants him to do and not what he wants to do for himself and the bougie black girl who wants to be white and not accepting her blackness because she would be consider ratchet if she would be loud and cuss people out. Justin Simien, the director hit the end of the film with a full on black face, hip-hop party.

The film was very thought-provoking and quite entertaining. I felt very connected with a few of the characters and had a growing discontent feeling with some as well. I really enjoyed Lynol's character and his development through the first and how his voice become stronger. I didn't quite care for Sam and her radical news, and same goes for Reggie. I felt bad and sympathetic towards Troy and even Kurt, but there are so many in that position.



Nearly everyone in Dear White People is harboring a secret - some much more than others - and one of the most frustrating things about the film is that many of these secrets seem to be in direct conflict with the makeup of the characters that are keeping them. It becomes increasingly difficult to identify with any of the protagonists when their actions seem to lack all logic and rationality, essentially defying the things we've come to know about them over the course of the film.

That's not to say that Dear White People is a bad film, because it certainly is not. It's intelligent and funny, and features top-notch performances from its four leads. All of the correct elements are in place, but much like its characters, writer/director Justin Simien's film seems to struggle with its identity, and therefore never really finds a cohesive voice.

6.3/10-IMDb
92%-Rotten Tomatoes
79%-Metacritic
7/10-Mine