Jay Will

Mary J. Blige

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Camila Cabello

Michael Kelly

Mare Winningham

Gbenga Akinnagbe

Juan Castano

Lori Hammel

Benjamin Papac

Ian Duff

Max MacKenzie

Caleb Eberhardt

Curt Morlaye

Decater James

Reggie Alvin Green

Thom Niemann

Chance K. Smith

Alexa L. Fogel

Zebah Pinkham

Tiffany Parks

Masahiro Hirakubo

Stephanie Fox

David Gendron

Jacqueline Fundus

Cassandra Parks

Eldo Ray Estes

Derrick Kollock

Luke Rodgers

Merrell Hollis

Morgan Earnest

Jamin O'Brien

Anton Gold

Janissa Ramirez

Dennis Dembeck

Lauren Crawford

Deirdra E. Govan

Ali Jazayeri

Ksenia Sereda

Kit Bland

Roy T. Anderson

Dina Goldman-Kunin

Jahan Lopes

Jeff Skoll

Robert Kessel

Jeffrey Soros

Antoine Fuqua

Andrea Calderwood

Rebecca Hobbs

Kat Samick

Alex Kurtzman

Jenny Lumet

Simon Horsman

Jeff Hobbs

Alexander Fleming

Ike Oedel

Jeff Russo

Drama

History

Rob Peace

Los Angeles Media Fund

Participant

Hill District Media

25 Stories

Sugar Peace Productions

United States of America

CinemaSerf

Jay Will turns in an engaging enough effort here but I found the whole story just a bit lacking in substance. It's based on a true story, adapted by director Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays the father of the eponymous young lad. He's separated from his mother (Mary J. Blige) but seems to be on decent terms with them as he comes for a routine visit in his dilapidated old car. Quickly, a tragedy strikes and dad "Skeet" finds himself sent to prison for a double murder. It falls to son Rob to try to find a way to prove his innocence. Skip on a few years and we find this young man, highly adept at mathematics, proving his genius as he manages to get into the Ivy League thanks to some sponsorship from his prep school but again, he is constantly striving to find a way to extricate his dad from jail. It's his skills at chemistry that now serve a different purpose as he and a few colleagues develop a brand new revenue stream that makes him very popular amongst the student body (and mind) whilst raising the cash to fund his dad's appeal. Meantime, with their community gradually falling to wrack and ruin, he also hits on the idea of using some of his cash to kick-start refurbishment works on over 170 homes that have been abandoned or foreclosed upon to revitalise his community - but when the sub-prime crash hits the world it leaves him desperately exposed in more ways than one. When we get to the end of this film, it does make you look back and think a little about how society can contrive to thwart people with even the slightest degree of social ambition - even when is appears to be eminently commercially viable, but the problem here is that there's just way too much missing from the narrative. We skip ahead when we ought to be developing his character his situation. There is virtually nothing from the trial that convicted his father, for example. Peace is clearly a decent man of idealism, reduced to using the tools at his disposal to funds things way more permanent than a flashy car or some bling for his girl (Camilla Cabello) but again the storytelling leaves us to make too many assumptions about who did what back when and about his own, ostensibly victimless, crimes that risk compromising his long sought goals. Interestingly, this isn't a film that takes much of a racial stance. His colour seems not to have been especially relevant as his education progressed but in the end it was maybe just a short story that's undercooked here and skirts over too many of the issues it needed to fulfil it's promise. It's still worth a watch, but the telly will suit it fine.

English

Extended Clip - Carrying My Dad's Burden

Official Trailer