Here’s a nightmare scenario for you: Imagine you’re a couple of black graduating college seniors about to embark on a spring break evening of partying with friends and roommates. But when you return to the apartment, you find an unknown white female passed out on the floor.
Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and Sean (RJ Cyler) find themselves in just this situation. Kunle is finishing his science experiment on molds, the results of which may determine whether or not he gets into Princeton. He wants to call the cops, but Sean figures they will be blamed for drugging the girl.
It seems their third, Latino roommate Carlos (Sebastian Chacon) left the door open, and now they need to figure out what to do with “Goldilocks” (real name: Emma, played by Maddie Nichols).
What to do if you’re more afraid of what might happen if you call 911 than you are of the emergency itself? That’s the subject of Carey Williams and K.D. Dávila’s “Emergency.”
They load her into Sean’s van with the intention of finding someplace safe to take her. So begins a scary, chaotic and sometimes funny chase story.
“Emergency” began as a Sundance short film of the same name which won a Special Jury Prize in 2018. Now it begins life as a full-length film.
The added length seems a little tacked-on: Emma, now asleep in the van, wakes up and needs a bathroom. She throws up a few times. A taillight goes out on the van (are the cops nearby?). When they park in a neighborhood, they are not welcomed by the residents there.
The film goes on like that until it finally ends, Kunle and Sean get closer than ever as friends (and Watkins and Cyler are excellent in portraying the growing friendship), and all ends more or less well.
But the topic is important: Minorities often do have a real fear of any kind of contact with police (watch the news any day of the week if you wonder why), and we as a society need to work on that.
“Emergency” opens May 20, 2022 at Landmark Hillcrest and May 27 on Prime Video.
No comments:
Post a Comment