Repairing a relationship that has been damaged is an arduous process, and just as much work may need to be done on the individual people involved as on the way they interact with each other. After a period of self-reflection and renewal, someone may be better suited for existing in society in general, even if that transformative time doesn’t actually benefit the catalytic dynamic it was supposed to serve. The Dutchman, in adapting a famous play, sets events in motion to put its protagonist to the ultimate test, one he seems to fail over and over but knows he needs to pass in order to not only redeem himself but to survive.
Clay (André Holland) and Kaya (Zazie Beetz) are not in a good place. The film opens on a therapy session with Dr. Amiri (Stephen McKinley Henderson) where Kaya’s infidelity is allegedly their biggest issue, but Clay is the one under fire for not even trying to forgive Kaya and work to get back to a peaceful and manageable state. When he’s leaving, Dr. Amiri offers Clay a copy of the one-act play Dutchman to read, and when he refuses, Clay finds himself becoming the protagonist in that story, meeting a femme fatale, Lula (Kate Mara), on the subway and watching with horror as she begins to take over every aspect of his life and refuse to allow him any escape.
This film is an expansion of the famous 1964 play Dutchman, which was previously adapted into a 1967 film. The surrounding story, and characters like Kaya, are new, but the premise remains the same: a white woman who seduces a Black man on the train and then begins to chip away at any sense of stability or potential happiness he has in his life until there’s nothing left. Sixty years later, this story still feels relevant, enhanced with some technological flair to make it feel like it’s truly set in modern times, even if much of its construction and storytelling style still does feel like a relic of the past.
This marks the latest in a line of intriguing projects Holland has anchored that have made their way around the festival circuit, including Exhibiting Forgiveness and Love, Brooklyn. While those projects do contain their fair share of complex relationships, this one finds him playing someone who doesn’t believe he’s a villain yet bears responsibility for the choice to go home with Lula, therefore inviting the unfortunate consequences whose severity he couldn’t have foreseen but needed to anticipate. He’s paired with Mara, who appears in no fewer than three films this year at SXSW, and this is undeniably her most dynamic performance, one which has her delivering potentially cringe-worthy dialogue that indicates her sentiments of racial superiority, but she owns it and offers an interpretation of the role that’s appropriately both alluring and haunting.
The framing of this film finds Dr. Amiri as the unwitting engineer of Clay’s downfall (Amiri Baraka wrote the original play, so it’s not a stretch given the character’s name), who appears to Clay throughout in different settings as a narrator and guide of sorts. So much of the conversations featured in the film, particularly those aboard the train and in solitary scenes between Clay and Lula, feel like they should be on the stage, not adapted in any way for the big screen. In stark contrast, the added scenes featuring Kaya and political candidate Warren (Aldis Hodge), who has tapped Clay to endorse him at an important event to which he regrettably brings Lula, do seem remarkably different and clearly written from scratch rather than to be in line with the existing material.
Given that Dutchman is a historic text frequently referenced – and formative for the actors and creatives involved with this film early on in their careers – this film offers an intriguing update that looks at those same, ever-present issues through a different lens. Holland and Mara are committed, and watching them, even if they seem like they’re acting for the stage half the time, is certainly thought-provoking and affecting. Director Andre Gaines delivers a lived-in experience that will work better for some audiences than others, a high-concept meditation on race, guilt, and redemption.
Movie Rating: 6/10
