We finally watched this movie last night. It was. . .well, it was great, but you need to be prepared emotionally to watch it. I had a vague idea that it focused on racial tensions, but it was so incredibly raw. It was hard to get over that twist in the pit of my stomach feeling, watching the horrible way the characters treated each other and thought about other people. It played with me emotions, portraying characters as unredeemable, then making them human. It made me uncomfortable, waiting for something horrible to happen, and brought me to tears when it did – or somehow didn’t. There were epiphanies for some characters – none of them untinged by regrets or even a true change of heart, just little realizations of the humanness of others.

I felt like a wrung-out sponge by the end, and few movies have had the genuine emotional depth to do that to me. I’m not easily swayed by typical movie devices – they may produce a brief emotion or reaction, but nothing sticks. This morning, I’m still getting the feelings all over again each time a snippet replays in my head. Damn good movie. Damn good.