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Rustin Confines Itself to the Shadows of Bigger Stories


Rustin is exactly the kind of movie that gets nominated for one acting Oscar and nothing else. There's usually one every year: a movie that is thoroughly mediocre in every way except for one performance (usually the lead) that stands out and gets the attention of the acting branch of the Academy; sometimes they can even win (Renee Zellweger in Judy, anyone?) That's not going to happen for Colman Domingo though, but you can be sure Netflix is happy that Rustin is in the conversation anyway. I wouldn't be reviewing it otherwise.
And Rustin is a movie that has very little going for it beyond Domingo's interesting transformation into Civil Rights activist Bayard Rustin, the openly gay colleague of Martin Luther King who organized the March on Washington (and later became an icon of the American neo-conservative movement, but the movie chooses to ignore this side of his legacy). The March is the key point of focus for the movie, framed as Rustin's great ambition and a moment of revolutionary triumph -his admiration for Gandhi and Indian independence is made clear. And the film charts his attempts to unite the somewhat factioned chapters of the Civil Rights Movement in support of this endeavour, as well as his own relationships and sexuality at a time when it is seen as a liability for the movement.
It should be noted that the laurels for this movie are in the only modestly deserving place. Domingo is indeed quite exceptional as Rustin -his look, accent, flamboyant personality and body language are on point and he manages to make the figure entertaining without feeling like a caricature -which given the role requirements and the context, could easily have come across. And it's genuinely nice to see Domingo, who's been a well-regarded character actor for quite some time now, get a leading role that really demands something of him. And the fact that he out-paces luminary co-stars like Glynn Turman, CCH Pounder, and Jeffrey Wright, only stands as a greater testament to his strengths.
Domingo and Turman co-starred in the last movie from Rustin's director George C. Wolfe, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom -and while the veteran theatre director proved a great and unusually dynamic fit for that stage adaptation, here he seems notably more constrained by the comparative spatial and narrative freedom. There’s very little of the kind of flourish in editing and framing employed on Ma Rainey, as though Wolfe doesn’t feel the need for it when not bound by a single location. And so the direction is tangibly more flat and unambitious. Scenes are shot without much attention to detail or visual versatility, the technical craft is very low-key, the production design is uninteresting and desaturated. For a movie that isn't based in the theatre, Rustin more than Ma Rainey is heavily reliant on performance and script. And on the former count it is fairly adept (even with someone like Chris Rock strangely cast as NAACP President Roy Wilkins); but it's the latter that leaves much to be desired.
I don't know why the screenwriters on this movie decided this story needed a love triangle subplot between Rustin, his white colleague (and real-life lover) Tom Kahn (Gus Halper), and a fictional young new activist Elias Taylor (Johnny Ramey). Perhaps present to merely underline his sexuality, it is so nakedly manufactured a storyline that it can't help but distract from the main thrust of the narrative and delineate Rustin's endearing character as the celebrated figure of the piece. And there doesn't seem to be any real reason for his behaviour here, barring a vague love-at-first-sight attitude towards Taylor. In fact the movie's whole relationship to his being gay during this time, something it is obligated to address, feels very drab and inorganic. Rather than engage with actual obstacles in his life posed by his sexuality or the ways in which he is able to express it in such a dangerous time, it concocts a very Hollywood throughline of his sexuality being accepted and validated by MLK, played by Aml Ameen. A fictitious climax revolves around the exposure of Rustin’s 1953 arrest for “sex perversion”, his passionate expression to the Reverend that the fight for equality ought to encompass sexuality, and ultimately being publicly defended by King, whose blessing seems to be all it takes to wash away the issue for Rustin. This of course is a reductive comment on homosexuality and the fight for LGBTQ rights -fitting it should come mere minutes before the evocation of the “I Have a Dream” speech, perhaps the most widely simplified manifesto in modern American history. It should come as no surprise that like the bad-faith actors who quote it, the movie doesn’t touch on this speech's more radical tenets.
The whole focus being on the March on Washington also does a disservice to Rustin and his long career of advocacy. There’s a broader story to be told that doesn’t just cast Rustin in relief to a better-known Civil Rights icon. He is the one credited with introducing MLK to Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent resistance, and it might have been pertinent to see his time in India. We do get a flashback to an act of resistance in Kentucky -when he boarded a whites-only bus for Nashville thirteen years before Rosa Parks’ similar statement of defiance, that resulted in him being kicked off and beaten to the point he lost two teeth. It's a good scene, but is drawn as mere backstory, as is the incident that led to his arrest.  By constructing a narrative that centres the March as the culmination of Rustin's legacy, without much interest in what came before or after, it makes it harder for the movie to adequately communicate his character, impact, and relevance. Because this is innately a sanitized image of Rustin, I have no doubt that was the intention.
It makes Rustin safe awards-bait, but not much of a satisfying movie. At most it is a curiosity for those unfamiliar with the history, painting it and Rustin's sexual identity struggle accurately in broad strokes. But in spite of Domingo's dedicated performance, it fits all too well in the stable of Netflix mediocrity. Bayard Rustin is a fascinating figure, both for what is depicted here and what isn't; and it really doesn't take any research outside of this movie to see that -which is perhaps the heart of the problem.

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