What if there was more?
Imagine this: Goldilocks, who is in college, has eaten all of the porridge and drunk it, and is now lying on the living-room floor. They drive around town for hours, arguing over whether to take her to the hospital, or leave her at the doorstep of a frathouse, fearing police retaliation.
I’ve just summed up director Carey Williams’ new film Notify us immediatelyThis section will make its debut at Sundance 2022, the opening night in the U.S. Dramatic Section. This comedy features RJ Cyler and Maddie Nichols as college kids who make mistakes but don’t get a laugh. This movie makes it difficult to become engrossed in its social commentary without feeling it’s making a mockery of its message. Maybe that’s the point? The film is all over the place, and the payoff doesn’t hit you in the feels as it should.
Notify us immediatelyBegin with Kunle (Watkins), his roommate, and Sean (Cyler), in the lecture hall. They listen to their professor freely use the N-word as she gives a lecture. “lesson”What does the word mean? Both have their own opinions. Kunle thinks she wasn’t malicious, that there was a point to what the professor was saying. Sean believes it’s wrong and the school should fire the teacher. Although they may be friends, these two people are different. Kunle is intelligent, preppy and plans to go to Princeton to study biology. Sean, however, wants to get high and party. They plan to go from one frat house to the next to get drunk, high and find girls.
After spending some time in school’s biology lab, they return home to see a blonde young girl lying on the living room floor unconscious. Carlos (Sebastian Chacon), Carlos’ third roommate, is high and unaware of the discovery as he sits in the backroom. This girl, whom the men call Goldilocks by Emma (Maddie Nichols), has been beaten out and is wasted. What do the three of them do? Sean is scared to call the police because he’s afraid the cops will suspect them of wrongdoing. The three of them decide to drive the girl to the hospital. They change clothing to look posh, so they don’t draw attention to themselves while driving. As the college students attempt to rescue this girl, there are many hilarious moments.
The entire N-word scene, which was only five minutes in the movie, took me out. What was the point of all this? It isn’t until 40-minutes in that it gets interesting. It’s hard to believe that these three young men of colour can be good Samaritans and not put themselves in danger. Then I discovered the film isn’t about what the three young men decide to do, but about teaching Kunle a lesson. He’s under the impression that things can’t be that bad for Black people in America, right? Wrong. The poor kid learns the hard way that his utopian world is just in his head because no matter what, his smarts and preppy look won’t save him from systemic racism.
In this video, you can see the racial power dynamics. Notify us immediately are the stuff of nightmares, and things get especially tense when the unconscious girl’s sister Maddy (Carpenter) and friends spot her in the back seat of Sean’s van. Spouting assumptions, generalizations, and stereotypes along the way as they try to track her down it’s cringeworthy to hear and watch. With as serious a premise as this is, it’s executed so haphazardly like a racially charged National Lampoon movie.
How can you make something like this a comedy? KD Davila, screenwriter, wants to blend genres and ideas. But by making racism the main joke, they must be entertaining, not frightening. It is important that the story provides characters the audience can relate to, and not repel them. Cyler is the saving grace, his comedy timing is spot-on. However, he’s given too much comedic responsibility because when he’s off-screen, the movie implodes.
Who is it? Notify us immediately for? Who are the target demographics for this?
These films can be irritating as they attempt to address multiple issues simultaneously, rather than focusing on one issue and building a world around it.
Although there is some magic, it’s difficult to connect with the film because of the insufferable characters and misplaced laughs.
Notify us immediatelyAmazon Studios opens May 20th in theaters, and Amazon Prime debuts May 27th.