Selma

Often films about the struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor indulge in a fantasy where somehow merely the act of pushing back is enough to make the bad guys see the light. One of the many, many things that Civil Rights drama Selma gets right is the way it shows that often pushing back is merely part of a wider political struggle – that is, causing a disturbance on the street increases political pressure on the people who get things done to do the right thing. That was the thinking behind the decision by Martin Luther King jr (David Oyelowo) to focus the next stage of his Civil Rights campaign in the small Alabama town of Selma.
With segregation officially over (in theory of not practice), King wanted to put pressure on President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) to remove the bureaucratic obstacles preventing African-Americans from voting in the south; Johnson, who had a whole country to run, wanted to focus on other issues. Selma had a strong grass-roots network, plus a local sherrif who heavy-handed and firmly racist: King new if they riled things up there Johnson would eventually have to act in the face of images the nation – and the world – couldn’t ignore.
The mix of individual struggle and the big political picture help create a compelling behind-the-scenes look at history in the making. It’s a subtle portrait of the man who shaped history too: King’s political skill (and his personal flaws) are brought to life in an amazing performance by Oyelowo, while Johnson’s antagonist role might worry some but it’s largely born out by the facts. And the facts of what went on in Selma are often ghastly: this is a powerful, moving film that deserves to be seen as widely as possible.