“Blindspotting” Is There There

2018 has two films set in Oakland: Sorry to Bother You and Blindspotting.

Of the two, Blindspotting is pure Oakland, pure there there. It drills down into the city’s essence and finds not just a physical place but the perfect metaphor for a divided and disenchanted America struggling and resisting change.

The gentrification of what use to be a tough, mostly minority neighborhood provides all the drama and plot.

Collin, a young black man (Daveed Diggs of Hamilton the musical fame) and a convict about three days away from ending his parole and his white best friend Miles (Rafael Casal, who co-wrote the screenplay with Daveed Diggs), a loose pistol who owns many, and totally enamored with the gangsta mystique, work for a moving company that mainly moves a white clientele into formerly black homes. Add a police shooting of an unarmed black man that Collin is the lone witness to and director Carlos Lopez Estrada has all the necessary dramatic and metaphoric material to make a great film with contemporary resonance.

The old Oakland resisting the gentrification of the new one is echoed in every scene, a classic example of great screenwriting 101. There are some on the nose moments but it is often a perfect match of theme, place and character. The only jarring note is Diggs need to remind folks that he is a Hamilton grad by rapping his dialogue, especially at the story’s climax.

Blindspotting reminds everyone that there is ironically a lot of there there to disprove the old Gertrude Stein quote about this city by the bay.