Perfect (2021)

Despite the film’s efforts to reframe its heroine with modern complexity, a certain emotional distance lingers.

I’m still trying to comprehend the psychological and moral implications of their fascination with each other, or why their almost written-in-the-stars depth of connection makes so much sense.

The way Jeannette has to deal with child neglect makes her insecure about her parents and how she was brought up and raised in the United States. This continues into adulthood, where Jeannette becomes a successful journalist and is frequently asked about her parents by others.

The Gates, John Burr’s new thriller film, is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of three Black twenty-somethings - Derek (Mason Gooding), Kevin (Algee Smith), and Tyon (Keith Powers), as they accidentally take a wrong turn into a gated community that’s more like a modern-day sundown town. The three friends witness a variety of crimes in their new surroundings, including an attempted homicide and an attempted rape. As they attempt to alert the authorities and do the right thing, they are thwarted at every turn by the worst horror stories of American conservatism - racist white suburbanites, reckless gun violence, corrupt police, religious mania, and a megalomaniacal pastor. 

A quiet film that does not demand your tears but earns them. It explores love that lingers, timing that fails, and the silence between what was and what could have been.