Dope

Year: 2015
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Director: Rick Famuyiwa
Stars: Shameik Moore, Kiersey Clemons, Tony Revolori, Zoe Kravitz, Blake Anderson, A$ap Rocky, Forest Whitaker
Production: Significant Productions

One thing that I wholeheartedly, unabashedly love about film is its populism. For all its faults film is the popular art that all walks of life flock to. Its almost poetic to think that people of all ages and all nationalities and faiths can come to a movie theater and find something they enjoy with characters and/or images they can connect to. I am a white heterosexual male in his late-twenties with a reasonably well-off background. So what do I have in common with Malcolm Madacombe (Moore), a black kid from Inglewood, California? Turns out a bit more than I thought.

Dope follows a series of unfortunate events surrounding Malcolm and his geeky friends Jib (Revolori) and Diggy (Clemons). At the start, all have to walk the tightrope of being a geek in the ghetto. Most times being that way gets you bullied; in The Bottoms it could get you killed. After Malcolm runs into a small time drug dealer (Rocky) and does him a favor, he and his friends are invited to his birthday party where they come into the possession of designer drugs. Digging in deeper and deeper into ever escalating havoc, will our plucky heroes make it out of their situation unscathed?

Coming into the film I expected something along the lines of The Girl Next Door (2004) only without the porn angle. Both films do involve a trio of nerds coming of age through harsh and seedy realities after all. What I got however was a movie more in-tune with Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) by way of Boy N the Hood (1991). A movie with sage-worthy thoughts and unique perspective told with a structure that is at times cinematically jarring. A satire of the highest order that misses the funny bone and aims directly for the heart.

The episodic nature of the film is part of its charm. Side stories involving Malcolm's crush on the drug dealer's girlfriend Nakia (Kravitz) and the budding popularity of the trio's band are given time to breathe and go on tangents. Writer/Director Rick Famuyiwa cares less about story structure than about getting the audience to identify with Malcolm. His foibles might have graver struggles than those you or I may have faced but being a teen means everything we did back then had immediacy and consequence. I for one can see myself in Malcolm even though the gravest issue I had to deal with at his age was not getting the part I wanted in the school play.

I would have made a great Othello!!!!

It is when the audience fully connects to the protagonist that the dynamic of the film slowly shifts to that of a satire. More poignant than before, the film's third act is not the frivolous good-time comedy it was advertised as. No matter, the satire is much richer and sharper, the antagonists that emerge are much broader foils of the economic and educational gatekeepers. The visuals are more dynamic and turned everyone's attention to the tightrope all teen in Malcolm's position must walk. I honestly wanted more. I left the theater hoping not for a sequel necessarily but for more characters like the ones I saw.

Now trending!

Dope is a satire of the best kind. It offers a unique and compelling perspective and does so sympathetically without being maudlin. It doesn't sacrifice keen and critical discourse with overbearing of over-broad humor and finally its a coming-of-age tale populated with characters who we care about and want to see succeed. In an art-form that manages to touts its populism while giving its supporters less and less in story and structure, I'm glad film can create something like Dope. Let's hope this starts a trend.

Final Grade: A-