Fruitvale Station
For a movie that’s only 85 minutes long, it seems as though Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station” takes its sweet time getting revved up, dramatically. However, it’s important to the final impact of his film that Coogler shows us as much of Oscar Grant’s final day on Earth as possible, so that we can feel a real sense of loss at his senseless death near the end.
But first, the facts: “Fruitvale Station” is based on the true story of Oscar Grant, who, on New Years Day of 2009, was shot by police on the platform of the titular train station in Oakland, California, after he was detained for a skirmish he was a part of on the train. (The initiator of the fight, whom recognized him from Grant’s time in prison, was not detained, let alone looked for at the time.) The cop who killed Oscar said he mistakenly pulled out his gun rather than his taser, and was sentenced to two years in prison for accidental manslaughter, and Oscar’s death, which was recorded via phone by several onlookers, and showed Oscar and his friends being brutalized by the cops before the shooting, set off riots in the Oakland area. Coogler starts the film with one recorded account of the shooting, but the shooting isn’t the whole story he’s telling.
Instead, Coogler, making a strong debut as writer and director, wants to show us Oscar as a man, flawed and irresponsible, rather than Oscar as a symbol of racial injustice. Does he succeed? I think so, but it’s still hard not to see him as a symbol when we get to that platform in the end, especially in light of the recent acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. But inequities in the criminal justice system when it comes to African American males isn’t the subject of Coogler’s film, Oscar is, and in the film Coogler has made, he’s a rich one. Oscar is barely a year out of prison for dealing drugs at the time of his death, but he’s still struggling to build a life for himself; he can’t seem to stop screwing up. He’s been unemployed for two weeks, but hasn’t told anybody, be it his mother (the powerful Octavia Spencer), or his girlfriend (Sophina, played by the terrific Melonie Diaz), with whom he has a four-year-old daughter, Tatiana. He was also caught cheating on Sophina recently, and he seems to be reverting back to drug dealing ways as a way of providing for her and Tatiana. On New Years Eve of 2008, though (which also happens to be his mother’s birthday), Oscar seems to be trying to turn over a new leaf, by being forced to accept his past mistakes in discussions with Sophina, as well as getting rid of some pot he was looking to sell by tossing it in the ocean. It doesn’t look like he’ll be able to get his job back, but one gets the sense he’ll be settling in to another one shortly after the ball drops. It’s understandable to think that Coogler could be whitewashing the truths of Oscar’s life in his screenplay, since that happens a lot with “based on a true story” dramatic narratives, but the ground-level immediacy with which he shoots the film makes the film feel very real, landing with the impact of an impromptu documentary rather than a feature film shot after the fact.
A big part of that is the performance by Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant. A TV and movie veteran (with credits as varied as “The Wire,” “Red Tails,” and “Chronicle”), Jordan finds his cinematic breakthrough in the role of Oscar, and it’s a raw, authentic performance. He doesn’t hit a false note anywhere in the film, whether it’s getting his grandmother on the phone to help a young woman with cooking seafood at his former employer; or having a tense, emotionally difficult interaction with his mother when he’s in prison (shown in flashback); or convincing a store owner to let the women he and his friends are with to use the bathroom before they head back to the train station on that fateful night. Jordan portrays Oscar as a young man (he was only 22 when he died) who was charismatic enough to do anything, but always, it seemed, managed to do the wrong thing. It’s a soul-stirring performance, and the centerpiece of a film that, while imperfect, feels authentic to its core about an event, and the person at the center of that event, that’s so surreal, it seems as though it should be ancient history, rather than something that occurred in the recent past.
