Rating: NR | Runtime: 104 minutes
Release Date: February 3rd, 2023 (USA)
Studio: RLJE Films
Director(s): Mo McRae
Writer(s): Sarah Kelly Kaplan & Mo McRae

You’re one of the good ones, brother.

You can’t have an open, rational conversation if you aren’t willing to acknowledge that you might be wrong. It’s difficult to do so, though, when the call to have that kind of conversation is often born from a position of heavy emotions and an unwavering certainty that said position is the rational one.

This is the fallibility of mankind and the catalyst for so much of the hate that seems to run rampant within our respective echo chambers. Debate is dead. Comprehension is tainted. Indoctrination is king. We hear what we want to hear and let fear rule our impulsive responses. We’re weak and angry and self-righteous and, perhaps most of all, deluded.

Director Mo McRae and co-writer Sarah Kelly Kaplan push the futility that should result from such truths to the background of their film A Lot of Nothing so that the absurdity of the resulting manic desire to pretend the opposite takes centerstage.

We see it in the opening scene with Vanessa (Cleopatra Coleman) and James (Y’lan Noel) watching TV in their wealthy suburban neighborhood home to discover yet another young unarmed boy had been shot by the police. And more than just another tragedy to feel in their bones as a Black couple in America, the culprit was the man who lives next door (Justin Hartley’s Brian)—a man who had already used the phrase “you people” with them over a garbage tote dispute.

What would generally be a sobering exchange of horror and sadness quickly turns to a rousing call to arms instead. Rather than get angry in the abstract or at each other (James is so far removed from a past littered with the bodies of his friends that his newfound affluent corporate lawyer personality takes over to tell Vanessa they should “wait until all the facts come out”), they keep the scotch pouring as they egg each other on to burn the world and do something.

First it’s writing a social media post before remembering their white bosses lurk in the likes. Next it’s a confrontation to walk over and say something to Brian’s face. Then it’s a matter of getting their gun to show him what it’s like to feel powerless. It’s a one-shot rapid devolution of sanity that seems right in context with its insane circumstances.

You can say the same about the entire film as McRae and Kaplan throw every ideological and racial contrast at the screen to get their audience to laugh and think in equal measure. They systematically separate everyone in the process too, often potently doing so right after initially aligning them.

Because while James and Vanessa must both deal with being Black in mostly white spaces, she is also a woman—in the same position as a woman in his office that he inherently demeans to steal whatever sense of control he can from the men dehumanizing him. Parenthood. Economics. Spirituality. Gender roles. Mental health. Social politics. It’s all on the table once violence is wielded to force an open and rational conversation that can never be either.

It’s an entertaining if overstuffed ride that pulls no punches. It leans so hard into stereotypes that it’s easy to question some of the choices (especially when turning the tables as far as assumptions towards Brian go) before realizing that flipping everything is necessary to avoid being labeled the irrational person holding the gun.

Paranoia and deception therefore rule the day as each party (the trio is eventually joined by James’ brother, Shamier Anderson’s Jamal, and pregnant sister-in-law, Lex Scott Davis’ Candy) seeks to push matters towards a place where they each have an advantage. Mistrust ultimately prevails until escape proves impossible. Because these conversations only seem to ever end worse than they’ve begun since the only person we truly listen to today is ourselves.

---

The main cast of A LOT OF NOTHING; courtesy of RLJE Films.