I had mixed emotions going into Fruitvale Station. It's gotten a lot of buzz—and I mean a lot—since it debuted at Sundance earlier this year, particularly focused on lead actor Michael B. Jordan. I've heard nothing but good things about it. Which concerned me, because what if my expectations are too high? It's not like I've never been disappointed by one of The Weinstein Company's adopted Oscar babies. For example: The King's Speech and Silver Linings Playbook. They're both OK movies, but they're in no way deserving of all the praise they got… the same sort of praise Fruitvale has been getting. What if this movie neither good, nor bad, but average? What if I'd enjoy it more if I mentally talked it down a bit before seeing it?
I needn't have worried. Fruitvale Station is every bit as good as they say it is.
Jordan plays Oscar Grant, a 22-year old man living in the Bay Area with his girlfriend and their young daughter. Oscar's had some trouble with the law in the past, but he's reformed himself. He's nice to strangers, animals, and his elders. His life's not easy, and it would be the simplest thing in the world for him to fall back into old habits, but he doesn't.
We get to know all this over a 24-hour period stretching from New Year's Eve to New Year's Day, 2009. It happens to be the last day of Oscar's life. (That's not a spoiler. The movie informs us of Oscar's fate first thing. Also, it's based on a true story, so it's not exactly a secret.)
The quality of Fruitvale Station creeps up on you, or at least it did on me. I wasn't feeling it at first because of the way it's very, very sure to let you know how great a guy Oscar is, almost to the point of establishing him as some sort of saint. One who used to be not-so-saintly, sure, but that just makes the conversion more admirable. One of the first scenes has Oscar texting his Mom right after midnight on her birthday because he's just that good a son, for goodness' sake. It was a bit heavy-handed.
But when Oscar's fate rushes to its inevitable end like a train to the eponymous Fruitvale Station, you realize that every moral, selfless thing you've seen Oscar do up to this point was absolutely necessary. Without it, the last third of the movie would not be the emotional gut-punch that it is. It's not just sad. It's gutting, which must've been a tough clhallenge for writer/director Ryan Coogler to pull off when the audience already knows exactly what's coming. I had to sit and stare at the screen during the credits just to give myself enough time to emotionally recover. It's a brilliantly made masterpiece of a movie, but boy it is rough.
Jordan's performance is also every bit as good as you might have heard it is. The movie skirts along the edge of over-the-top at times, but his nuanced performance never does. He keeps the movie grounded, just as his terror near the end is what really takes your heart, squeezes it in a medieval torture device, and hurls it over a cliff.
And since Fruitvale Station is based on a true story, let's add "putting your heart in a blender and pushing puree" to that list.
Is Fruitvale Station a subtle movie? Absolutely not. But the subject it tackles isn't a subtle one, and when it comes to police perpetuating violence against citizens based on their race… well, we don't exactly live in subtle times. Every single scene, every line, every shot Coogler put in the film heightens its emotion and hammers home its message, and it's a message that, particularly now, is worth hearing.
I've been known to stand up on a soapbox and yell about how much I dislike blatantly emotionally manipulative movies (*cough*GraveoftheFireflies*cough*), and maybe if I ever get up the nerve to watch Fruitvale Station again I won't like it so much. Something tells me I will, though. Because it doesn't use emotional manipulation as a crutch. It's 85 minutes of tightly paced, perfectly constructed emotional torment. It's only after you've sat through every horrible, brilliant second of it that you truly realize how good what you watched just is.
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