Mark Reviews Movies: DEVOTION (2022)

Devotion, Sony Pictures Releasing

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 21, 2022

From the perspective taken by Devotion, this is a noble and inspirational story about a friendship that crosses racial barriers and overcomes prejudice at a time when they were more apparent. There's another point of view in this story, though, and it's the one that belongs to Jesse Brown, the first Black aviator in the United States Navy. The movie, written by Jake Crane and Jonathan Stewart (adapting Adam Makos' non-fiction book), ostensibly tells Brown's story, but it seems strangely reluctant to see that story through the man's own eyes.

Take how the character is introduced in director J.D. Dillard's movie. The opening scene is set in a locker room at a naval base in Rhode Island, where newcomer Tom Hudner (Glen Powell), a fellow Navy pilot, has just arrived. Putting away his things, Tom hears a low voice, sounding a bit angry, coming from some unseen place in the room. Emerging from the sinks around the corner, Jesse (Jonathan Majors) appears. Tom offers a greeting and introduction, but his fellow aviator is silent and hesitant to respond. When the new guy finally offers his hand to him, Jesse finally responds and introduces himself.

The narrative here instantly and solidly establishes its perspective. It belongs to Tom, a man who looks and mostly behaves like the majority of pilots in this squadron. He is special, perhaps, because he proves himself to be the most skilled aviator among the team, although one has to add a caveat to that distinction. After all, Jesse is also a part of this unit.

Since he's a Black man at a time when some military personnel begrudge his participation, Jesse doesn't possess the same opportunity, isn't exactly held to the same standards, and has a lot of pressure that his fellow aviators could barely imagine. The movie understands these things, to be sure, but it definitely has a difficult time imagining Jesse's story as the one that really matters here.

It is Tom's that takes the focus. He's a great pilot, a good and decent man, and certainly not a racist. Those qualities are what make him special in this story, especially the last one, because he gets to learn a thing or two about Jesse's situation, dilemmas, and challenges. That makes Jesse more of a teacher for this guy than a character in his own right, experiencing these difficulties and rising above them or feeling trapped by them.

This is why perspective is so vital in shaping how a story is told and which story is actually being told within the context of that point of view. The heart of this particular tale, based on a true one in the build-up to and at the start of the Korean War, belongs to Jesse, but the movie's mindset is stuck with Tom.

For what it is, though, the movie is a well-meaning one with flashes of deeper considerations about race, how Jesse has been and continues to be treated, and how that has shaped the pilot and man he has become. Over several months in 1950, Tom and Jesse gradually become friends as they await a new assignment, move on to an aircraft carrier patrolling for possible Soviet activity in the Mediterranean, and, finally, go on a couple missions in a divided Korea.

To be fair to the screenplay, Jesse does have a life beyond teaching lessons to Tom. He has a loving wife, named Daisy (Christina Jackson), and a young daughter at home, and after Tom proves that he's genuine in his friendly manner toward Jesse, the pilot invites his comrade over to meet his family.

Some of the screenplay's shortcomings in developing and examining these characters aren't exclusive to Jesse's portrayal. Daisy becomes the worried wife at home for a single scene after her husband's departure from Rhode Island, and for all his good intentions and by-the-book ways, Tom is pretty dull as a protagonist. What else can we expect, really, from a character who's defining feature for this narrative is that he's not something? Given little to work with, Powell is a genuinely amiable and, when it's required for the character's minimal growth, thoughtful presence here.

Majors is the standout, though, communicating much of what the screenplay only suggests or occasionally addresses in a direct way. That's especially true in the way he interacts with others, such as the manner in which Jesse seems to be measuring Tom's sincerity for a long stretch of their early acquaintanceship, and must constantly judge the particulars of certain situations, such as how he's going to respond to a Marine's overt racism whenever the two men encounter each other.

On occasion, the screenplay approaches those qualities directly, when Jesse explains that he recites all of the hateful things that have ever been said to him—as a kind of reverse pep talk—and when he forces Tom to consider how even an unintentional slight against Jesse's character could have severe consequences to his military career. Tom gets to learn those things, and that, apparently, is the movie's major lesson.

In other ways, Devotion functions well. Its aerial sequences are impressive and, when it comes to the combat, coherently staged. In a broad sense, the movie means well, but ultimately, it feels as if it's telling a character's story on his behalf, instead of letting that character speak for and experience it himself.

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