Bayard Rustin is an activist who faces racism and homophobia during the Civil Rights movement and he helps with the 1963 March on Washington.
When Rustin is massively influenced by the speeches and thoughts of Martin Luther King whilst also battling his personal demons of not being able to fully be himself. He manages to coodinate and organise the freedom march with around 100,000 people and puts his heart and soul into it, caring about making such a difference. We are given many scenes which contain meetings and debates around how and if the march could actually be done.
It does highlight the issues that were happening at that time, and how overlooked Rustin was for many years not receiving the proper credit for everything he did behind the scenes which never occured during his lifetime. A film like this can only be seen as a way to raise awareness of his memory and that he was somewhat of an unsung hero.
The thing with the film overall is that it doesn’t really have a lot going for it away from the performance from Colman Domingo who is just wonderful from start to finish that is for sure, but it needed that little bit extra which it just fails to follow through with. It’s easy to understand why he is in the Leading Actor nominations for the Oscar. He drives everything about the film and it feels as though Domingo is very passionate about telling this story.
1 comment