Till

18 years in the making, the movie retelling the famous, world-changing event that was the lynching of Emmett Till, has finally reached the silver screen. Directed by Chinonye Chukwu, also known for her excellent work on Clemency starring Alfre Woodard, Till presents the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley’s pursuit of justice when her 14-year-old son Emmett is brutally murdered by white locals while visiting his family in Mississippi. The loss of her son at the hands of murderers, and her choice to have an open casket, act as one of the greatest ignitors of progress in the American civil rights movement in the 1950s, and Mamie’s campaign for retribution for her Emmett becomes a nationwide movement for all those who face racial prejudice.

Exhausting and haunting, Till is a visual depiction of a ghost of the past. The movie stays honest to the painful truth, albeit various accounts will forever be up for debate, but it is this constant foreshadowing of grief that makes the film such an emotional watch, as it keeps on hurtling towards the inevitable event that we all know is coming. At a glance, the movie is a simple recital of the story and facts, but as the layers begin to peel away and the fractures in Mamie’s soul become shattering breaks, we discover that Till is just as much about a mother’s search for justice in an unjust world.

And it is in the devastating performance of Danielle Deadwyler that the success of the film lies. You will struggle to find a performance of such raw emotion and power in any other movie this awards season. To embody such a resilient and inspirational figure is at first a challenge, but introduce the harrowing circumstances in which Mamie found herself and you have one of the acting challenges of the century; Deadwyler is a breakthrough sensation and rises to the occasion superbly. The rest of the supporting cast play their part amicably, but this movie is Deadwyler’s and hers alone.

Visually the movie has had a very Hollywood treatment, with a colour palette bathed in browns and oranges to remind us that we are of course back in the 1950s, and Abel Korzeniowski’s score is a little too rich and saturating. But despite the clichés, the sets are absolutely stunning and wholly immersive. Where Till trips and stumbles is when the movie takes a while to finally establish what it is trying to say. The film clearly aims to educate and commemorate, but then struggles to branch out into something greater for large portions of its 130-minute run time. It is also all slightly overdramatic, but it is this as a whole that makes Till such an emotive and gruelling watch, made all the more chilling by the simple fact that what you are witnessing is true and took place really not that long ago.

What remains from the events that took place in Money, Mississippi, in August 1955 is very little. Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market stands as a hollow ruin and the population of the community now dwindles below 100, but the memory of Emmett and the despicable acts that took place are ingrained in the area like scars that will never heal, Till will make sure of that.

Guy Lambert

Till is released nationwide on 6^th January 2023.

Watch the trailer for Till here: