Native Son

Ashton Sanders (Moonlight) is the highlight here taking on the role of misguided youth Bigger Thomas.  It can be challenging turning a classic novel into a film of the same esteem, much less updating the story to suit contemporary times.  Native Son has a talented director in artist Rashid Johnson and Pullitzer Prize winning screenwriter Suzan Lori-Park. Both Sanders and KiKi Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk) are more than up to the task in their portrayals, but Native Son falls a bit short in it's overall depiction of the story, particularly in the end and it's omission of key moments.  Nonethless, the parallels of a novel written decades before and its meaning now, seemed a bit undercut here.  That may not be necessarily the fault of the film or those involved, but somehow the almost futility in relevance of a classic American novel becoming almost irrelevant in scale in a sea of films throughout the years that intentionally or not, also illustrate the constant vigil and exploration for solution we must have for the plight of young Black men, the justice system, and social class.