Till

Chinonye Chukwu directs a magnificent Danielle Deadwyler and Jalyn Hall as they play Emmett Till and his grieving mother, Mamie.

Before the film Till was seen, the need for its existence was called into question. ‘Another exhausted Hollywood depiction of Black suffering,’ the online chorus sang, as though stamping the truth of our history into the mainstream consciousness is somehow shameful. Directed by Chinonye Chukwu, who follows up her brutal 2019 breakout film Clemency, Till is an expertly measured and respectful portrayal of the life of Mamie Till-Mobley after her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, was murdered by white supremacists.

For those unfamiliar with the story, young Emmett was raised in Chicago by his single mother, and in the Summer of 1955 was sent down to Mississippi to visit his cousins. After whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, he was dragged from his bed by John Bryant and JW Milam and, a few nights later, was lynched.

The film’s strengths lie, for one, in its impeccable casting. Danielle Deadwyler was gifted the impossible task of embodying a woman whose private life was little known and her public life was coloured by soul-destroying grief and indignance. Jalyn Hall, born in 2007, was tasked with bringing to life a young boy known only for his brutal death. Hall portrays Emmett with the naivety and confidence you would expect from a child wrapped tightly in his mother’s love. His performance is so impactful that one might recoil in despair knowing of his fate.

It is in those moments, that the need to depict the violence done to Emmett becomes redundant, and Chukwu is masterful enough to know that. But what we do see, what Mamie wanted us to see almost 70 years ago, was Emmett’s dead body. The reveal of his body is another surreal burst of colour: waterlogged and bludgeoned, he lies on an examiners table pink, purple and disfigured. From this moment onward, the story becomes focused on Mamie Till-Mobley transforming into an activist, and the sham Mississippi trial. Painstaking years of research are stitched into every detail of this film, yet it’s here that we idle into paint-by-numbers Oscar biopic territory. Speeches are made, the overwrought score becomes a supporting character and we can feel Mamie (rightfully) being wrestled into a history that is not exclusive to Black Americans.

The function of Till is to bear witness to a mother’s grief and the birth of a civil rights icon, the same way Mamie demanded we bear witness to her child’s murder. Chukwu directs a compelling tribute to what Mamie endured and achieved, yet for anyone familiar with the history, new insight is perhaps lacking. With histories like that of the Till’s, so often diminishingly referred to as ‘Black Trauma’ stories, it feels near impossible in Hollywood to strike the balance between honest and salacious, but Chukwu has gotten the closest so far.

Published 4 Jan 2023

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