All aboard for the poverty safari; roll up for the misery roadshow. Another middle class film for middle class people has been made depicting just how unremittingly awful life is down on Shitstreet USA - and you're all invited to flagellate yourselves out of liberal guilt. In competition feature
Yelling to the Sky is the latest in a long line of films which murmur a condescending "oh dear" in the direction of (predominantly African American) poverty. Try to imagine a film where a poor black family has a father who indulges in bouts of drink-fuelled domestic violence, where people are shot dead in gangland shootings and where everyone has to take or sell drugs in order to get by. Can you imagine that film, complete with bleached out cinematography? Of course you can: you've seen it before. There are good examples of this kind of thing. The endless torrent of pure, liquid despair that was Precious worked. TV shows like The Wire and The Corner manage to convey this sort of American experience with power and authenticity and, most of all, purpose. But Yelling to the Sky offers nothing but a cynical vehicle for
Zoe Kravitz (daughter of Lenny), who plays a girl named Sweetness. It has neither the calibre of performances, nor the visceral emotional impact of Precious - though that is clearly what it was going for, with Precious star
Gabourey Sidibe cast in a minor supporting role.
If your view of the world was restricted to films like this then you would likely believe that African American people do nothing but sell drugs, shoot each other and have babies. It's an unhelpful image which arguably perpetuates bigotry and a feeling of despair. I'm not against these stories being told, but they have to contribute something rather than simply recycling all the trite, cliché bollocks that has come before. Yelling to the Sky fails to do this. This is made even worse when you consider that the film is made by middle class black people effectively trading of this social problem (a quick glance of the director's biography shows she attended the prestigious Actor's Studio in New York) in order to win awards and take the easier road when it comes to funding. Think about how many positive films about black characters are made in America each year and you'll see that "gritty urban ghetto drama" is really the safest route to go down in terms of getting a "black" film made, at least the respectable side of an Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence vehicle. I'm not saying it's easy, but it must be easier to pitch than, say, a movie about black, suburban accountants.
It's good to be socially conscious. In fact the majority of the very best films are. And I'm certainly not saying you can only make films that fall into your area of experience - or we'd likely only get films about rich, attractive movie-makers. But when your film has a character resort to selling drugs - and from out of nowhere - only to then become a tough, junior gangster within a couple of scenes, it stretches credibility to say the least. As does the high-school Sweetness goes to, where people smoke pot in the corridors and where drugs are sold openly everyday on the stairwell. It feels like the picture of a gritty "urban" school as painted by someone who has never been to one. And neither have I, for the record, but I've seen it done better plenty of times in other movies. There are some decent things to say for Yelling to the Sky. Sweetness' older sister Ola (Antonique Smith) and her abusive white father (Jason Clarke) are played well. Especially the latter, as Clarke manages to keep his character human no matter what horrendous thing he is saying or doing. Elsewhere the talent of Tim Blake Nelson is underused as the token "relatable school councillor", as is that of Sidibe who plays a menacing tough girl. If the film does have something all of its own to shout about, then it is the fact that it is about strong (in every sense) female characters, all too often marginalised by the ghetto film genre.