All Day and a Night
Rated R, 121 minutes.
Available Friday on Netflix.
★★★½
"All Day and a Night" traces the story of a boy raised by a father who ends up in prison. Ashton Sanders, left, and Jeffrey Wright. Photo courtesy of Netflix.
As stories about fathers and sons go, they can range from the biblical to mythological – where violence, deception and patricide are the norm.
Then enters the intense and affecting contemporary take on fatherhood in the new Netflix drama All Day and a Night.
From the onset, one senses that patriarchal legacies are about to shatter. Still, favorable agendas are set, as when the thug-dressed drug addict J.D., played with fierce intensity by Jeffrey Wright (Hold the Dark), tells his newborn son to “rise above all [of what] we struggle with out here [in Oakland]… and do something with this life.”
J.D. is someone who occupies a dark space in the story. He’s hard on his family and makes what little cash he can in the criminal world he’s cemented to. As one character in the film says: "Slavery taught black people to survive, but not how to live. And that’s what we pass on to each other." As much as a parent may wish for their child's fulfillment, certain obstacles beyond our control come to push us toward the edge of what’s right and wrong.
Written and directed by Black Panther co-scriber Joe Robert Cole, All Day and a Night is thematically ambitious. Its trailer makes it look strikingly similar to many of the elements explored in the 2016 Academy Award-winning film Moonlight. Outside of casting of Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders, who plays the adult son of J.D., a young man is embarking on a journey of self-discovery amid a gang-torn neighborhood. There’s also that ongoing tug of war between the light and dark sides of ourselves, among other aspects that explore the sins that we inherit from the generations before us.
A lot is happening, and there's so much to unpack in All Day and a Night. It’s so loaded with tragedy and hard truths that any rays of sunshine are quickly clouded over. By turns, All Day and a Night is an elegy for those struggling to keep their eternal flame alight. Each scene brims with self-contained drama, whether it moves the narrative along or merely fills in a background color. Moment by moment, there are countless poetic touches in its tragic unfoldings.
"All Day and a Night" traces the story of a boy raised by a father who ends up in prison. Ashton Sanders, left, and Shakira Ja’nai Paye. Photo courtesy of Netflix.
Take, for instance, a scene when an emotionally defeated J.D. is talking to his son, named Jahkor Abraham Lincoln (Jalyn Hall – played later by Sanders), over a drink and a cigarette in a parked vehicle. Jahkor’s father speaks about the felony charge that has him trapped: “Won’t nobody hire you. They block you from food stamps and Section 8 housing. How are you supposed to live with no job or no help?” The sequence is later reflected by another bruising moment of Jahkor trying to apply for a job at a shoe store, which comes with its own wave of intrigue.
It only takes five minutes for the emotional landmine to detonate, and we spend the entirety of the film uncovering the mystery through flashback. The moving nature of Cole’s film relates to individual moments rather than a grand arc. (You could watch the trailer and feel like you know the entire movie.) The filmmaker has a flair for vulnerability (look at his work with Michael B. Jordan’s character in Black Panther).
As Jahkor, Sanders taps into such ruin that it causes you to question the state of his soul. When we him taking on dangerous jobs offered by crime lord Big Stunna (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II of the Watchmen series and the upcoming Candyman reboot). After getting through Big Stunna’s residential wall of armed forces, Jahkor breaks down, wondering why he’s been swept up in the work that makes him the spitting image of his father, someone he never wished to be. The line that Jahkor rides is the story’s greatest strength, most heartbreakingly illustrated when he rides his bike to take care of some business and encounters his younger self in the streets with his friends.
The poetry bleeds in All Day and a Night. Although Cole may push it a little too far in areas, the film wraps up in such a fashion that it’s impossible not to feel your heart grow in size. It’s a film about growth and awakenings, and I both grew and opened my eyes to new lessons about life that I will carry with me and pass on.
"all day" - Google News
May 01, 2020 at 08:12PM
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'All Day and a Night' a heart-wrenching poem about fathers, sons and legacy of sins - Denton Record Chronicle
"all day" - Google News
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