Luce (2019)

“When I first met my mother, she couldn’t pronounce my name. My father suggested that they rename me. They picked Luce, which means light.” – Luce

Number of Times Seen – 1 (13 May 2020)

Brief Synopsis – After a teacher begins to suspect that something is wrong with her star pupil, his parents begin to also question things that have been happening in their lives.

My Take on it – This is a movie that my wife and I have been interested in seeing for quite a long time, yet never got a chance to see until now.

Just looking at the cast, this story has so much potential and they somehow found a way to make this story work so well.

Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Octavia Spencer are all superb here but they are all outshone by newcomer Kelvin Harrison Jr. in the title role who is mesmerizing throughout with this performance.

The story plays out really well and stays griping from start to finish due to the way that the script moves along.

The film manages to successfully give us some great characters and story lines that remain both unpredictable and ambiguous throughout.

This actually helps make things even more powerful to watch unfold because they allow the viewer to decide on their own what the answers are to some of the burning questions brought up along the way.

The movie deals with the fact that there is a very thin line sometimes between truth and lies and things can teeter to one side just as easily as it could fall to the other side.

The conversations between these characters are written really well and make things quite believable because there are some very powerful and poignant statements made as things unfold.

The issues they deal with seem quite realistic and as a parent of teenagers, I can personally attest to the validity of most of the viewpoints that both the parents and the teacher encounter in this dilemma.

The story arc is quite amazing and the pacing helps keep things quite entertaining from start to finish due to the way that certain issues are debated by these characters in such a profound and genuine way.

They present things in a way that leaves numerous possibilities for these characters without forcing us to choose how things might play out because of the ambiguity of it all.

Bottom Line – This is a really well played out griping drama that successfully manages to give us characters and a story that are both unpredictable and ambiguous the whole way through. This allows the viewer to try and decide on their own what is truth and what is lies as the story progresses The dialogue and conversations between these characters are quite poignant and bring up so many real issues that people deal with on a regular basis. As a parent of teenagers, I could relate so much to so much of how both the parents and the teacher relate to the main character. The fact that the story moves in a very interesting arc helps keep things so entertaining throughout because it brings so many things to the table to debate and does a great job of presenting both possibilities without needing to make us choose between them. Amazing cast that includes Watts, Roth and Spencer but is accentuated by Harrison Jr. in the title role. Recommended

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Kelvin Harrison Jr. actually wrote a paper on Frantz Fanon as part of his research for the role; Octavia Spencer then graded it, and that paper is the one seen onscreen. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (9/10)