I must admit, I am about a month and a half behind on writing this review. Life happens. Now that I am back and have refreshed my memory on this extraordinary theatrical piece, I am finally ready to tackle this review. “American Son”, is about an estranged interracial couple, who reunite in a Florida police station, to help find their missing, bi-racial, 18-year-old son; Jamal. Why is this bit of information important? The climate of America and it’s racially charged police shootings against unarmed black men, run a thread through this script. The monologues and scenes seem to form quilts sown together by the very racial divide that people have become accustomed to. What once began as far off stories that we have watched on the news, or articles that were read about someone else’s child, have now become the stories about the neighbor down the street or the cousin just spoken to at the family reunion too summers ago. This story is no longer far off, affecting someone, somewhere and Jamal isn’t simply a name from a play turned feature film, who happened to have been killed by the police. Jamal has become every young black man. Jamal is the “American Son”.
Kendra is a black mother whom has had an argument with her teenage son the night before he went missing. Even though their words got bad, Jamal has never, not come home. He is missing and for some reason, his mother is having a hard time relaying this very fact to the racist police officer she is trying to get to help her. Kendra knows something is gravely wrong. It’s almost like Kendra had to break down the preconceived stereotypes the police officer had built up in his mind, about her son, before convincing him that she needed help. This part of the film showed the reluctance the white police officer had towards getting to know who Jamal was, in order to give the best possible help. Oftentimes in missing person cases, knowing the victim can help law enforcement find the missing. But what happens when the police who have been hired to serve, refuse to get to know who they should be looking for, because of race?
Kendra, throughout the early morning, is asking questions of the police officer concerning her son, in which he refuses to answer. Is Kendra irate at times? Yes. Has she seen what can happen to a young black man at the hands of the police? Yes. This topped with Kendra being a psychologist, has her teetering on the very edge of insanity. What the police officer doesn’t understand is that history does repeat itself. Kendra, a mother, shaken at the thought of what has possibly happened to her son, is more than she can bear.
"She walked through the dark halls of the old police station towards the water fountains that still bared the stain of segregation."
Two water fountains still protrude from the walls, one once made for “Colored Only” while the nicer one was for the whites. The image for Kendra is a gruesome reminder of why she needs to find her son.
As I watched this play-turned-feature film, I couldn’t help but feel the pain of Kendra but with a little less sting. Although I am not a mother, in my own family, my first cousin did years in jail for impregnating a white girl in Mississippi, even though she was his girlfriend at the time. My family and I are glad he survived prison. It could have gone much worse. But I digress. Kendra starred at the wall where the two water fountains were and sunk between them.
"Like her mind, she was split between wanting to believe the night would get better, but history was indeed, repeating itself."
As Kendra takes a moment in the hallway, her husband enters the scene with his unrelated FBI badge hanging from his belt. The police officer assumes he is someone else and shares more details about his son, what happened, all while inserting racial remarks about Kendra. As Kendra returns, her husband joins her and the officer then realizes that he has made a mistake.
This movie has taken me on an emotional journey. The acting was so good I believed it to be real. Real like, I was actually watching a case.
"The metaphorical undertones of the script carried me away and I was happy to go along for the ride."
Once the detective finally arrived, to brief Kendra and her estranged Irish husband, I knew deep down, that Jamal wouldn’t be going home but a small part of me wanted this story to end differently. After all, this was a film, a play, maybe the writer would surprise us. But instead the writer kept it real. Jamal had been pulled over in the car with two other black boys that he had started hanging out with. He had been trying to connect with himself, because he had been suffering from lack of self-identity. His white friends from school couldn’t relate to his life as a black boy in America. They would always be offered the better water fountain, even though he and them all have been thirsty. Jamal was pulled over in the Lexus his father purchased for him. It displayed a bumper sticker that said, "Shoot Cops" in big bold letters, while the smaller letters finished the sentence of "with a camera when they pull you over for a traffic stop". Jamal allowed his friend to drive and they were followed by police. The driver purchased a nickel bag of weed. As they were being pulled over, one of the occupants tried to run, the police shot three times and one of the bullets hit Jamal in the head, killing him instantly. Jamal’s hands were on top of his car.
I’d recommend this movie to any and every parent with black teenage sons. This movie is also a great conversation piece for sociology classes and any educational outlet involved in the betterment of race relations. There are so many layers to this film. “American Son” gets 4-stars from me. Special shout out to the Director Kenny Leon, writer Christopher Demos-Brown and the actors. (American Son is available for viewing on Netflix).
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