An inevitably difficult experience, “Till” tells the fact-based story of the 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who was sadistically murdered by two white men while visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955. Directed by Chinonye Chukwu of the moving 2019 prison drama “Clemency,” “Till” begins in Chicago, where Emmett Till’s mother Mamie Till-Bradley (a searing, award-worthy turn by Danielle Deadwyler), who addresses her son (Jalyn Hall, “Space Jam: A New Legacy”) as Bo or Bo-Bo, experiences premonitions of disaster just before his departure for the rural town of Money, Mississippi, where he will stay with his Uncle Moses (John Douglas Thompson), a farmer with two sons. Mamie warns Bo that he is entering a different world and that he must behave according to its rules, however unfair. He assures her, but her fears persist. Mamie’s first husband, Bo’s father, was a soldier killed in combat in World War II. She is divorced from her second husband and engaged to a good-looking and stalwart neighborhood barber named Gene Mobley (Sean Patrick Thomas). Mamie is the only Black woman in her office, working for the Air Force. She is devoted to her family.
When she first hears of the “taking” of her son by two armed white men after he has an encounter with a white woman (Haley Bennett) in a shop, Mamie enlists the aid of the N.A.A.C.P., hoping to use the organization’s political connections to force Mississippi authorities to act.
“Till” is first a story about how one Black woman turned herself into a pioneer of the Black Lives Matter movement by turning the sadistic murder of her son into the subject of a national discussion. After hearing that her son’s body has been found in the Tallahatchie River, Mamie insists the body be shipped to Chicago. In spite of the horrific damage inflicted on her son’s face, she insists on an open casket. She want the world to see what his attackers did to her son. Eventually, “Till” turns into a courtroom drama, and Mamie must appear in court in Mississippi to convince the jury that the body is indeed the body of her son. We do not expect much from an all-white jury in 1955 Mississippi. Indeed, no one has ever been convicted of Till’s murder.
Director Chukwu does not show us the attack upon Emmett. We hear his cries briefly and see his burned body and the damage done to his head. The body is in such terrible shape that the defense attorney for the two suspects claims that the body is indeed not Emmett Till. What makes “Till” hard to sit through is the terrible grief of Mamie. Her sobbing, moaning and piercing cries just tear you apart.
“Till” brings a story many of us have only heard about to vivid and moving life. Deadwyler is certain to be nominated for an Academy Award. But also fine are veteran Frankie Faison (“Do the Right Thing”) as Mamie’s father, Whoopi Goldberg, who also produced, as Mamie’s mother and Thompson as the angry and mournful Uncle Moses. Also memorable is Kevin Carroll as N.A.A.C.P. lawyer Rayfield Mooty. I had reservations about seeing “Till.” But the film’s performances elevate this devastating tale and turn it into a love story, a story about racial justice in America and about a determined mother, who turned her son’s tragedy into a political force for good.
(“Till” contains racial slurs, racist behavior and intensely disturbing images)
MOVIE REVIEW
“TILL”
Rated PG-13. At the AMC Boston Common.
Grade: B+
