Rustin – Review
106 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written by Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black
Directed by George C. Wolfe
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
The architect of 1963’s momentous March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was one of the greatest activists and organizers the world has ever known. He challenged authority, never apologized for who he was, what he believed, or who he desired. And he did not back down. He made history, and in turn, he was forgotten. Rustin shines a long overdue spotlight on the extraordinary man who, alongside giants like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Ella Baker, dared to imagine a different world, and inspired a movement in a march toward freedom.
So much great history has been lost in the mists of time. Some ancient, and understandably so, but so very much history has been lost in the recent past, the incredibly recent past. In only sixty years, the name and contributions of Bayard Rustin in the fight for civil rights have been largely overlooked, buried not by the system he fought so hard to change, but by the very system he acted within to make those changes.
The problem with revolutions is that few members of the movement see things the same way, which allows those who believe in the movement only so far as it can take them to assume positions of authority, steering action (or inaction) to maintain their positions and authority.
“A revolution won needs no leaders,” if you will.
Regardless, the tale of Bayard Rustin is one of true belief in the power of non-violence, of coordinated effort, and the power inherent in the sheer number of the oppressed.
Colman Domingo performs beautifully as the unapologetic Rustin, the Black, Quaker, homosexual, who somehow lives his life according to all these of those attributes, making no excuses for who or what he is or does, striving only to do what is RIGHT and what is GOOD.
Even if those “leaders” would as soon cast him out as take his advise.
Generally, I found Domingo’s performance to be the only really good one here, but that’s mostly because everyone else feels like a placeholder in this narrative, a set of obstacles for Rustin to overcome or avoid at seemingly every turn.
But that performance is astounding. Domingo’s Rustin is almost manic in his presentation, mirroring the ping-pong of will-they-won’t-they of the “Big-10” civil rights groups he is attempting to coordinate for this massive undertaking.
In the end, the 1963 March on Washington succeeds because Bayard Rustin will not allow it to fail, regardless of the cost to himself, either personally or professionally, and Rustin succeeds because Domingo will not allow it to fail (despite the personally and professional stakes being far, far less than Rustin’s own).
He absolutely owns every second of screen time, demanding you acknowledge his presence, just as the real Rustin demanded you acknowledge the rightness of his cause… especially if you wanted to lead it.
Bayard Rustin is a name that should not have been forgotten, and this film will certainly resurrect it, placing back where it belongs in American history.
Rustin is now streaming on Netflix and stars Colman Domingo, Chris Rock, Glynn Turman, Aml Ameen, Gus Halper, CCH Pounder, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Johnny Ramey, Michael Potts, with Jeffrey Wright and Audra McDonald.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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