One of the biggest novels of 2017 was the YA novel The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, a story about a black teenage girl who witnesses an act of police brutality firsthand when a cop kills her best friends and deals with the unjust system in its wake. It won a number of awards, so it was only a matter of time for it to get its own big screen adaptation.
The film stars Amandla Stenberg, best known as Rue from The Hunger Games, as the main character Starr, who must straddle the line between her life at home in a poor Black neighborhood and an affluent mostly-white high school. The film also stars Regina Hall, Common, Anthony Mackie, Russell Hornby, Lamar Johnson, and KJ Apa. Like the book, the film will deal with police brutality, community struggles both from within and outside, the Black Lives Matter protests, and working within an oppressive system.
George Tillman Jr., best known for Men of Honor and Notorious, directs while Audrey Wells, of George of the Jungle and Shall We Dance? fame, wrote the screenplay. The trailer premiered at the 2018 BET Awards.
Frankly speaking, now is the right cultural moment for this film to come out. This speaks directly to the challenges all generations are facing today, and hopefully it’ll help spark important conversations. However, one has to wonder if it will be met with positivity all around, as the book was banned in at least one school district in the U.S. for its depictions of drug use and explicit language.
The Hate U Give will premiere in theaters on October 19, 2018.
