My sister and I have been looking to go see psychological thriller, Luce, for a long while now, and an indie theater near us finally got it! Totally worth the wait!
The film centers on all-star student, the titular Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), who was adopted by an affluent white couple (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) when he was a ten-year-old soldier in a war torn African country. Since then, he’s become a poster child for success and a role model whether he wants to be or not.
The meat of the story revolves around Luce’s history teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer), who is unsettled by a paper Luce writes in the perspective of a violent leader. So much so, that she then finds illegal fireworks in his locker. Concerned, she calls in Luce’s mother who refuses to believe that her son is capable of anything other than what she raised him to be.
Woven throughout the film are some of Luce’s other classmates who have been subjected to stereotyping by Mrs. Wilson, and we learn that Luce wants to make it right. Certain events like her home getting vandalized, trigger Harriet’s paranoia even more, and as much as she’s pointing the finger at Luce, she just wants to “protect” him. We see similar behavior from Luce’s parents, although they’re never on the same side at the same time.
Ultimately, Luce’s parents are the most concerned about preserving their perfect family and the perfect son they’ve rehabilitated in America. You think you see Luce finally turn the corner by the end of the film, but his distraught face while he’s running at the end seems to suggest otherwise.
Luce was an extremely slow burn of a film, but there was always just enough ambiguity to keep me intrigued. I truly didn’t know what was going to happen. Luce himself did seem perfect, but almost to the point that appeared pretty fake, or at the very least, painful. It was also frustrating to watch his parents flip-flop on whether or not they believed their son; seems like their perfect family didn’t have quite enough communication. I highly recommend this if you are into indie films!