Sunny Cour Tyard 

Lee Daniels’s Billie Holiday biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday was released on February 26th, 2021, and my immediate reaction to it was one of discomfort.

A gentle coming of age story, Water Lilies takes its time in exploring what it’s like to be a young girl trying to make sense of her sexuality in a heteronormative world.

Based on the legendary creature, the Chupacabra, this live-action movie brings an adventure to all.

What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.

A direct fall into the white savior narrative