Inside the Rain

Ben is tired of explaining that it’s NOT the Coronavirus.

(2019) Dramedy (Act 13) Aaron Fisher, Rosie Perez, Eric Roberts, Ellen Toland, Catherine Curtin, Paul Schulze, Donnell Rawlings, Rita Raider, Natalie Carter, Katie Claire McGrath, Jesse Means, Jaz Goodreau, Ryan Donowho, Kerri Sohn, Thom Niemann, Alex Emanuel, Christina Toth, Jacob Wheeler, Chelsea Watts, Miriam Morales, Jowin Marie Batoon. Directed by Aaron Fisher

 

I always feel a bit guilty reviewing movies that are autobiographical. It’s like reviewing somebody’s life; “Sorry, your life isn’t interesting enough. Your life could have used a few more car chases.”

There are no car chases in Aaron Fisher’s life. Here he plays Ben Glass, a young man who has an amazing array of mental issues, including ADHD, personality disorder, and the crown jewel, bipolar disorder. He takes a staggering array of drugs to essentially function. He is under the care of brash New York psychiatrist Dr. Holloway (Perez) who thinks she can make a significant difference in his life in only six weeks.

While at a party, the often-socially awkward Ben hooks up with Daisy (McGrath), a comely co-ed but when she makes it clear that the one-night stand is just that, he goes into a downward spiral that leads to a suicide attempt. While he is welcomed back to the University following what is, judging from the reaction of his Mom (Curtin) and Dad (Schulze) not the first time he’s tried it, Daisy stops by his dorm room just as Ben is organizing his array of pills into a weekly pill container. She mistakes this for a preparation for another attempt and the police are called. The university, having a strict two-strike policy, moves to expel Ben.

Ben feels the injustice of the thing and won’t go down without a fight, despite advice from his parents and shrink to do just that. Ben plans to appeal and when Dad won’t provide a lawyer, Ben hits upon the idea of filming a dramatic recreation of events which he feels sure will convince the board of appeals of his innocence and get him reinstated immediately. He even has a female lead – Emma (Toland), an escort/stripper/sushi girl who he grows sweet on after rescuing her from some boorish Wall Street types. If Ben’s parents and therapist thought fighting the expulsion was a bad idea, wait until they get a load of this idea…

I’m not sure how much of the material here is fictional and how much is based on actual incidents in Fisher’s life; certainly there are elements of both in the movie. There are times it’s hard to watch Fisher self-destruct as he goes off his meds; it gives viewers a hint of what the families of those with severe mood changes can go through. Amazingly, Fisher remains for the most part sympathetic throughout, although Ben can be profoundly unlikable at times. How willing you are to tolerate those phases are going to really inform how much you like the movie. Some folks simply won’t have the patience for it.

I can’t give this an unqualified recommendation though; at times this feels very much like Fisher made this for himself and without regard for a potential audience. Some of the humor doesn’t exactly hit the target squarely, although there are some really genuinely funny bits here.

In some ways this is a frustrating movie; there is tons of potential here but the missteps and perhaps the ego of the director keep it out of our grasp. Leaving a film feeling frustrated is never a good thing and that’s essentially why I didn’t give the movie higher marks. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect what was being done here.

REASONS TO SEE: A nifty surf guitar soundtrack.
REASONS TO AVOID: Spending time with Ben can be exhausting.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, sex, drug use, and violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Former welterweight world champion Zab Judah makes a cameo as one of Dr. Holloway’s patients, much to the delight of boxing fan Perez who wasn’t aware he would be on set.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/23/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 82% positive reviews, Metacritic: 51/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Aspie Seeks Love
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: Ema

For Ahkeem

Attitude is everything.

(2017) Documentary (Transient) Daje Shelton, Antonio, Judge Jimmie Edwards, Tammy Shelton. Directed by Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest

There are those who criticize the Black Lives Matter movement by saying that All Lives Matter, not just black ones. Of course they do. The issue is that sometimes white America, particularly the institutions of law enforcement and education treat the African-American community with such contempt that reminders are necessary.

This documentary follows young African-American teen Daje “Boonie” Shelton. She’s a typical young girl in North St. Louis; she has friends she hangs out with, she likes boys and as far as school goes, meh! But Daje has some anger issues; she gets into fights at school and now she’s being expelled. She stands in front of Judge Jimmie Edwards, her mother Tammy at her side and Judge Edwards essentially tells the two of them that despite mom’s pleas for one more chance, Daje has run out of them. She has one option and one option only: to enroll in the alternative school that he helped found, the Innovative Concept Academy (ICA) which specializes in helping at-risk youths transition from the criminal justice system into the education system and break the endless cycle of jail, release, jail, release that besets so many African-American teens.

Daje is extremely reluctant to go but her mom and Judge Edwards impress upon her that her only other choice is to drop out and find a job and this Tammy is adamant that Daje avoid. Daje is a bright girl who has a shot at going to college and Tammy is encouraging her to go. Little by little, Daje begins to blossom at ICA and become more self-confident and even as she struggles with math, she has a good chance at graduating and getting into college. With the help of counselors and teachers who believe in her, Daje learns to shine.

She also meets a boy named Antonio and from the moment they lock eyes they’re joined at the hip. Antonio has even more difficulty handling school than Daje and eventually drops out. Shortly thereafter Daje discovers she’s pregnant. The odds just got a little tougher but she perseveres, taking care of her pregnancy as well as school. Once she gives birth, she’s all about her baby boy Ahkeem. Everything she does is for him.

The baby daddy though is making a lot of bad decisions that put him in jail and on probation for a variety of crimes. Even though he professes when Ahkeem is born that he will get  a job and support his son so that he has the opportunities he himself didn’t have, he fails to follow through and instead gets arrested for being involved with a stolen vehicle and then caught with enough marijuana while on probation for the first crime to get arrested again.

Daje has a whole lot of attitude and not very much in the way of accountability when the documentary begins. The problems she has, according to Daje, are not her fault and yet Daje makes a lot of very poor decisions. The a-ha moment for me though was when I considered raising my own son at her age; he was also prone to making some pretty poor decisions. Unlike Daje and Antonio, he had far more opportunities to get his act together. He didn’t have the police breathing down his neck treating him like a criminal just for ambling around the neighborhood. When you treat someone like a criminal, they are far more likely to become one.

The filmmakers remain unobtrusive (although I’m sure that they made quite a stir at ICA) and nonjudgmental throughout. They present Daje’s life as it happens. They had no way of knowing that she would get pregnant (although statistics say that the potential was relatively high) and no way of knowing that she would graduate (which statistics said was far less likely). What happens to Daje happens to a lot of African-American women – her mother relates a very similar story which is why she is so adamant that Daje go to college. The filmmakers simply document and that is the essence of a documentary. My hat is off to them.

Daje in many ways is the face of African-American teen girls. She faces the same challenges, has the same hopes and dreams and survives the same environment. Despite the presence of Barack Obama in the White House when this was filmed, she knew very well that she was part of a system that was broken and yet there wasn’t much will in the corridors of power to do anything to fix that system. Now, with a new President and control of the legislature and the Supreme Court in the hands of men who seem to have little or no incentive to fix things in the African-American community, the outlook is even bleaker.

Leaving the screening for this film, I found myself wondering what sort of chance Ahkeem has at all. It took some time and reflection to consider that the problem isn’t just Ahkeem’s parents; it’s the environment that he lives in. During the course of filming, a young man named Michael J. Brown was shot in nearby Ferguson, sparking nationwide protests and giving rise to Black Lives Matter. Daje has a notebook which is littered with “R.I.P.” notices for fallen friends, most victims of gang and drug violence and she herself carries the scar of a bullet wound. The life expectancy of a young African-American man is not very long and the opportunities for escaping the cycle of poverty and crime not very many. For those opportunities to arise, white America will need to learn to perceive African-Americans differently. Documentaries like this one will help in doing that.

REASONS TO GO: A true slice of life of the issues African-American teens are facing today. Filmmakers take a nonjudgmental approach and are unobtrusive throughout. We get to watch Daje grow and blossom over the course of the movie.
REASONS TO STAY: Some of the choices Daje and Antonio make will frustrate you. May be uncomfortably grim for some.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity as well as some scenes of sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The filmmakers, both white, followed Daje around for her Junior and Senior years of high school.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/24/17: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Imperial Dreams
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Girl Flu