Luce stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. as the title character, a high school student from a war-torn country that was adopted by Amy and Peter Edgar - played by Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, respectively - who is a poster boy in his school for the American Dream. One day, his teacher Harriet Wilson, played by Octavia Spencer, finds a shocking discovery in his locker, calling his reputation in question. While Amy and Peter struggle whether or not to believe their son, Luce tries to convince them that Harriet has it out for him.
In today’s political climate, a movie like Luce could be really important. The film heavily addresses the issue of race and race relations, including perceived imagery by others. The title character is constantly seen as someone who could do no wrong, and those who are seen as screw-ups are told to “be like Luce.” So what happens when Luce himself may have potentially made a mistake? How is this image affected?
Well, it’s a bit hard to tell, considering that none of the characters seem to be able to make up their minds when it comes to making a decision. What makes this film so frustrating to watch is that it’s hard to really pick a side in the battle of Luce versus Harriet. Every scene contains some new development that’s in favor of one or the other, and the film will constantly flip back and forth between which of the two the audience is supposed to root for.
There’s supposed to be this sense of moral ambiguity when it comes to these characters, in such a way that it makes the topic of race relations a loaded conversation. And moral ambiguity is fine, but when the film can’t keep its same stance on a character for more than one scene, it becomes exhausting trying to keep up with what’s going on.
Characters constantly contradict themselves, and will give little to no explanation as to why they would do such a thing. There are scenes in which Amy and Peter openly chastise Luce as if he’s some sort of monster, and then immediately take his side in the next scene against Harriet, and almost never acknowledge their previous conversation. Probably one of the most honest moments in this entire movie is a repeated, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” from Harriet each time there’s some new development that appears or someone reverses their decisions. She says it multiple times and it perfectly sums up this movie in a nutshell.
And it’s fitting as Spencer winds up giving what’s easily the best performance in this movie. Spencer is the sort of actress that even when she’s in a bad movie, she would have to try to be bad, and even then she may actually fail. Her performance here is easily the most energetic, having a lot of the same vindictive, obsessive energy as she did when she portrayed the title character in Ma earlier this year, although much more grounded in reality. Her character arc is also the most fluid and probably most properly explored, with several other timely topics getting brought up that had a more cohesive mindset than anything else discussed here.
Characterization is otherwise something that’s totally lost within this movie, though it’s difficult to discuss certain aspects in detail as it goes into spoiler territory. However, the movie often tends to be hypocritical in the way it goes about character development. For a movie that wants to have an open and honest conversation about relevant social topics, it certainly makes a case at multiple points in this film to seriously imply that certain negative stereotypes that others had about Luce, in addition to other characters, may be true.
Not only is this insulting - as many of the stereotypes against Luce himself ring true to real life and are a still a hot topic of conversation - but also defeats the purpose of the entire movie. For every point this movie makes that’s right, it shoots itself in the foot with a handful of follow-up scenes that contradict itself and undermine what it set out to do in the first place. It feels disingenuous and only reinforces all the stereotypes it was speaking out against in the first place, which is easily the most aggravating part of this movie.
Luce addresses a lot of timely topics, although ultimately doesn’t do anything with them. Rather than having an honest, open discussion like it leads the audience into thinking it’ll have, it instead heavily implies many of the negative stereotypes it’s fighting are in fact true, and shoehorns them together in a thriller where its plot twists simply consist of characters who can’t even make up their mind. Despite a great performance by Octavia Spencer, Luce is an otherwise insulting and offensive, taking real-life issues and exploiting them for shock value.
Recommendation: Avoid It
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