RUSTIN - Mark Reviews Movies

Rustin, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 2, 2023

Like most of history, the civil rights movement succeeded because of the people in the spotlight and the countless people whose names won't be etched into history. Rustin tells the story of a man and activist who existed somewhere between fame and anonymity during that period. He was an organizer, capable of gathering people from all walks of life into a common goal. If director George C. Wolfe's biographical movie doesn't come close to providing a sense of Bayard Rustin as a person, it does succeed at its best times as an examination of the man's work and why he was a vital part of the civil rights movement.

Colman Domingo plays the activist in a very fine performance that helps to fill some of the gaps left by Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black's screenplay. The backdrop is a single chapter in Rustin's life, namely his work in imagining and organizing the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom—an event that would quickly become defined by his colleague and friend Martin Luther King Jr.

Does it need to be said that this was the occasion of King's "I Have a Dream" speech? One of the smart moves of the script is how none of this feels like a build-up to that moment, and indeed, the movie only shows the final lines of King's immortal speech. It's the right move, because this isn't King's story (although it still remains odd that we've only had one Hollywood film about the man's life in the six decades since then). To focus on the speech would be to make it so in some way, and this movie is about more than a single moment or, despite the fact that the small excerpt is the climax, even the effort to make it possible.

No, the framing here only and entirely surrounds Rustin, a member of the old guard of the civil rights movement, whose work went back as far as the efforts to desegregate the U.S. military before, during, and after the country's involvement in World War II. He was a major player in devising and executing the Montgomery bus boycott, championing the use of the non-violent tactics that would become a moral staple of King's own philosophy, preaching, and activism.

There was more to the man before the timeline of the movie's narrative, and there would be more to him and his work, as a gay Black man whose activism expanded beyond matters of racial justice and equality, until his death in 1987 than this movie even suggests. As a biography, that's a shortcoming of the movie, to be sure, especially since its focus is on a person whose life and efforts are intentionally hidden for assorted reasons. It's admirable the filmmakers want to bring Rustin into the spotlight, but as portrayed here, his life is still defined by the people and events surrounding him.

When the script focuses on his role to and within those people and events, though, it does arrive at something engaging. For here is an honest-to-goodness organizer, who has great ideas, such as the 1963 march that would be drastically changed from his original vision, and possesses the wherewithal to put the right people in the right place, at the right time, and in the right job.

Ignoring that the story mostly keeps his personal life—mainly his clandestine romances with fellow activists Tom (Gus Halper) and Elias Taylor (Johnny Ramey)—in the background, it does become an admirable study of a single notion. The logistics of mounting something like a mass protest on the National Mall are intrinsically complex.

Most of the narrative has Rustin discussing and—more often—debating with the various figures and personalities necessary for such an endeavor, navigating the politics of civil rights activists and organizations with differing notions of what needs to be done and how those things should be attempted, and battling prejudice from outside and within the movement. The external form is obvious, because people within the government—both elected officials and the FBI—suspect or know about Rustin's former Communist ties and his existence as a gay man. It's only a matter of time before suggestions and allegations become public accusations and denouncements.

The internal conflict and tension, though, are because of those suspicions about his private life, as well as just having some egos fighting with each other. The sparring is primarily between Rustin in NAACP head Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock), who doesn't like anyone telling him what he should or shouldn't be doing, and U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (Jeffrey Wright), who wants credit for a legislative effort or solution to the issues of civil rights. Rustin has quite the ego himself, putting a years-long barrier between himself and King (Aml Ameen), as well as fellow member of the old guard A. Philip Randolph (the great Glynn Turman, notable in a small role).

Once Rustin is in his element of organizing the march, Rustin does come to considerable life, detailing the logistical and political nightmare of a large-scale event. Wolfe's attention to portraying how much and in what specific ways the planning and execution of the march were a group effort, filled with disagreements but toward a common goal. That its eponymous figure's story is sacrificed for that depiction is somewhat understandable but also disappointing.

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