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Afterward, a grown-up says that Luce should be cloned, and everyone agrees with a laugh.
Hes a credit to their school, Luce is.
Someone invokes Obama in passing, and Luce is certainly in that studious, peace-making mode.
Shes worried about a paper he wrote about black militancy and the morality of extreme violence.
She senses his inner tensions.
), but is itcunninglystilted?
Onah and Lee never fully disguise the films stage origins and its hokey buried secret construction.
Most of the big stuff happens offstage.
Central to its power is Harrisons performance.
When Luce lies, there are no tells, no signals to the audience thathisstiltedness is cunning.
Its even possible that the things he might have done theft, vandalism, sexual assault he actually didnt.
Maybe were just inferring his guilt.
Maybe were (and this is worse) projecting on him.
We know that Luce is sensitive to tokenism, that hes uneasy with being a poster boy.
Thats the brilliant aspect ofLuces stiltedness.
They make you doubt everything and everyone.
Im still unsure of some things.
Lees most original creation is Spencers Harriet Wilson, whos over-vigilant with black students.
Luce has more power in this society than she does.
Oddly, Lee has chosen to make his protagonist not Luce or Harriet but the white mother, Amy.
Fathers recede in this sort of drama because, honestly, theydo.
In the end, youre left with a movie that doesnt quite jell but expands in the mind.
