Screenwriter: Ryan Coogler
Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer
Trailer link
IMDb page
The beginning of the end:
Fruitvale Station, this year's biggest independent hit, is a brilliant film that showcases the real life events of December 31th 2008, where 22-year-old Oscar Grant met his end at the hands of a young police officer, even though he was completely defenceless and unarmed. In a rare move, Ryan Coogler (the director) opens the movie by showing real life cellphone footage taken by people who were on the scene when Oscar was shot, effectively "spoiling" the end of the movie within 2 minutes. Because of this, the experience of watching Fruitvale Station is shrouded in an atmosphere of tragedy and unfairness almost instantly, making it one of the most heartbreaking and emotionally affecting films of 2013.
A star rises from the ashes:
After the real life footage has played, the movie opens on the morning of December 31th. Oscar Grant has just woken up, completely unaware that he will be dead in less than 24 hours, and when he is done sending his daughter off to school, we get to see how he interacts with friends, family and colleagues on the last day of his life. Grant is portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, who is best known for his role in 2012's "Chronicle", and his performance in this film is nothing short of starmaking. We are shown through flashbacks that his character has been to jail, cheated on his girlfriend and sold drugs in the past, and that these events now trouble him very deeply. He loves his daughter, his mother and his girlfriend very much, and Jordan portrays his desire to become a better person for their sake so convincingly that you become emotionally attached to him within no more than a couple of scenes. The way I see it, everyone might as well get used to the fact that there is a new Michael Jordan in town as quickly as possible, because this talented young man is here to stay.
What about dramatisation and glorification?:
As with every other movie, book, song or article that is based on true events, it is absolutely vital that you, as a member of the audience, approach Fruitvale Station with a certain amount of scepticism. In this case, the media painted Oscar Grant as a helpless victim of a ruthless act of police brutality, and no matter how convincing the cellphone recordings might look, we all know that the media has a tendency to "slightly" bend the facts of reality in cases like these. Fortunately for the film, Ryan Coogler does a very good job of remaining as neutral as possible when recreating Oscar Grant's final hours. As an example, we are shown very early on how Oscar has been selling drugs for several years in order to stay above water, and that he has a tendency to become angry and hostile when things get a little out of hand. He is not portrayed as an innocent angel who happened to be in the line of fire of a heartless killer, as has previously been the case.
Also, as with every other biographical movie, a few liberties had to be taken in order to turn real life events into a theatrical experience worth paying to see. Thankfully, this does not mean that the actual recreation of the shooting is portrayed as one sided as it previously has been by the press, or as unrealistically as it might have been. In the climax of the movie, it is clearly visible that the crowd and Oscars friends' verbal and physical reactions to his arrest had a huge impact on the cop that ended up shooting him a few minutes later, and instead of painting the officer as a cold hearted bastard, Coogler portrays him as an insecure rookie, who acted on instinct rather than hatred. No one except the cop himself knows what went through his head at that point in time, and Ryan Coogler's ability to portray the ambiguous nature of the shooting, no matter how unfair and brutal the event might seem to the outside world, is the most impressive and admirable aspect of the entire movie.
The power of knowledge:
Rather than taking the excitement out of the film, the fact that we all know how it is going to end is one of the Fruitvale Station's strongest assets. It really is kind of hard to explain, but as the film moves closer and closer to that inevitable point in time, you start to grow more and more anxious and more and more fearful of what you know is just about to happen. Instead of fearing the unknown, the things that we do know become what we fear the most, which in turn takes the tension and level of emotional investment in the characters to entirely new, gut wrenching heights. Except for Only God Forgives, I personally have not felt as consumed by a movie all year as I was by this one, and watching it felt more like being on an emotional rollercoaster than in a movie theater.
In conclusion:
No matter how few specifics we know about the things that took place on January 1th 2008, the death of Oscar Grant was eternally tragic and completely unnecessary. This apparent case of police brutality spawned a huge amount of controversy and debate all over America, and Coogler probably decided to adapt the events into a movie in an attempt to raise even more awareness about the subject. The cop that did the shooting was released from jail after serving just 11 months in prison (source), which should seem like a very short amount of time to just about anyone, no matter what you think happened that night. First time director Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan did an incredible job at adapting the tragic event into a haunting, memorable and thought provoking movie, and Fruitvale Station is definitely my pick for best independent movie of the year so far.
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