Rustin is a biopic documenting Bayard Rustin, one of the most prominent Civil Rights organizers for the March on Washington in 1963. As a gay, African American man, he surpassed insurmountable odds in an America that hated everything about him.
Colman Domingo is excellent as Bayard. He is extremely thoughtful in his performance and I could feel the pain in his character. He is naturally charismatic and eats his screen time in an extremely moving way. The cast around him is excellent, I’ll never dislike Jeffrey Wright in any role.
Unfortunately, I felt like the movie was incredibly dull around Domingo. The movie’s B plot follows the relationship between Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr, and I feel it was very underdeveloped. The movie has to tell us many times that he and King are very close but outside of one scene of them at a diner and one house trip, doesn’t do much to show us that it’s true.
Rustin isn’t a traditional biopic where we follow Bayard through his life, but more at the height of the Civil Rights movement with the planning of the March on Washington. Because of that, I feel like we never learn enough about who Bayard is and how he got to where he got. We see flashbacks of incidents in his younger life but like with his relationship to MLK, it feels underdeveloped.
Visually and technically, there’s nothing that stood out to me for better and for worse. I liked that the movie felt fast-paced with a fast jazz soundtrack zinging us through scenes.
Final Thoughts
Bayard Rustin’s story deserves to be told. I had never heard his name growing up and going through the public education system. This could’ve been a great opportunity to highlight the life of someone so impactful in American history. Especially with his sexual orientation presenting more challenges at the time, we could’ve had a truly inspiring movie. Instead, we got a very safe, very basic biopic. Coleman Domingo is once again excellent as Bayard Rustin and I’d expect to hear his name as the awards start being announced.
3/5
“Quick Review Time” or “QRT” is a series of short form reviews where we look at films that are new releases that do not qualify for full length reviews or are older films we want to highlight in between our other film reviews. For film suggestions, email [email protected].
