Movie Maven

Freedomland (2006)
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Moore, Edie Falco
Written by: Richard Price
Directed by: Joe Roth
Official Website
(Photo: Moore and Jackson, courtesy of Movies Online)

Freedomland is not a pretty movie. It's designed to make one uncomfortable, to make one reconcile what we want to see and what we know to be true. But despite it glorious moments and performances, it is also an uneven movie that has to stretch a bit too far.

I would argue that the best thing about Freedomland is its beginning. It starts in the working class, mainly African-American neighborhood in Dempsey, NJ. The neighborhood's inhabitants are out and about- playing basketball, sitting on their porch and talking. A pale, white woman shuffles past them, moving slowly but purposefully down the street. The woman, who we will soon meet as Brenda (Julianne Moore) walks out of the neighborhood, and into the local hospital- leaving a bloody handprint on the door. By the time the final opening credit rolls, as Brenda is showing her injured hands to the doctors, you will be hooked.

Brenda's story is that a black man car jacked her, with her son in the backseat as she was trying to drive out of Dempsey into the mainly white neighboring town of Gannett. The case is given to Detective Lorenzo Counsel (Samuel L. Jackson) and as he begins to investigate, long-standing racial tensions in the neighborhood erupt in violence.

Both Moore and Jackson are at their best, although I would say Moore's performance tends to go a little overboard. Visually she's the very form of grief- her hair is bleached out, lank and oily. Her eyes are like black pits, and she looks like she hasn't slept or showered in days. But she turns Brenda into a character instead of a flesh-and-blood human being, which gets a little grating. Jackson likewise makes Counsel loud and a little hysterical. As much as I love Jackson's acting in this film, his performance starts to mimic the parody of himself on Chappelle's Show. Edie Falco does a splendid turn as a search party coordinator, simultaneously kind and businesslike, maternal and steely. Her scenes are shorter and quieter, but they are some of the most affecting in the film.

While the story grips you and the performances are at times exquisite, there is still something not quite right about the movie as a whole. I haven't read the novel, also written by Richard Price, but I know it runs about 600 pages, which leads me to believe that the film might suffer from adaptation-itis. In other words, there's simply too much crammed into the film to be entirely effective. There is a real sense of hysteria in the movie, perpetuated in part by the hysterical performances and the sense that it is rushing to tell the story.

But there are also moments of perfection in Freedomland. There is one point, for example, during the riot where Counsel catches a boy, probably in his early teens, trying to light a box on fire. As Jackson yells at him, you realize the boy's eyes have turned completely dead. It is a chilling moment- we have witnessed the destruction of the boy's childhood, of his innocence. These little moments of introspection bring the film out of mediocrity and showiness, to create something genuinely fascinating to watch.