Movie Review: “Selma” (Rated PG-13)

“Selma” – Paramount(NEW YORK) — There would never be a bad time for director Ava DuVernay’s Selma to come out, but right now feels like the best possible time for this accessible, palpable story of our awful and embarrassing recent history of violent racial oppression. Think about this: we sent a man into outer space before we gave American men and women on Earth the absolute right to vote. The residue of the civil rights movement persists across the years and still turns up in places like Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York.
 
Selma isn’t a sweeping film about Dr. Martin Luther King’s life from beginning to end. Instead, DuVernay chooses to focus on a defining moment for him and the civil rights movement: the effort by King (David Oyelowo) to get the black people of Selma, Alabama the right to vote. It’s a moment that encapsulated the brilliant balance, strategy, humanity and fortitude of one of the greatest leaders this world has ever known.
 
While there are many fine supporting performances here (Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, Oprah Winfrey, Tim Roth and Andre Holland, to name a few) Selma soars thanks to the collaboration between DuVernay and Oyelowo, who transformed into Dr. King using a perfect combination of restraint and commitment. It is the kind of performance every actor dreams of but only few pull off.
 
DuVernay also exercises considerable restraint showing the quiet rage and humanity of her subjects while eliciting the truth from all of her actors. Without giving anything away, there is a scene at the beginning of this movie that is so brilliantly executed, it may and should stay with you the rest of your life.
 
Paul Webb’s script puts us in Selma, as well as in the Oval Office with King and President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson). It puts us on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, when King and other peaceful marchers to Montgomery, Alabama were attacked by armed officers. It puts us in King’s command center debating strategy, and in his home while he struggles to keep his marriage afloat.
 
Selma doesn’t treat King as a saint. Instead, he’s portrayed as a man with saintly aspirations. This isn’t just one of the best movies of 2014 (it came out in limited release last year).  It’s the most relevant and certainly the most important.
 
Five out of five stars.

Follow @ABCNewsRadio

Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.