Movie Review: The Hate U Give

The Hate U Give cover. Photo from Wikimedia.

The Hate U Give, the motion-picture to Angie Thomas’s bestselling young-adult novel, has moved many people with its message.  With a 23 million dollar budget, screenplay writer Audrey Wells, director George Tillman Jr. , and producers Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, Robert Teitel, were able to create a powerful move with actors such as Amandla Stenberg, KJ Apa, Sabrina Carpenter, Algee Smith and Regina Hall.

THUG LIFE is an acronym and song originally created by 2Pac stating The Hate U Give Little Infants F***s Everybody.  This message is shown throughout the movie in various ways. Whether it be with the main character, Starr’s little brother or through gang activity going on in the neighborhood. This is one of the main messages in the movie. The movie also represented how racism can be shown through young people today. This is shown through Starr choosing to portray different personas when around people at school versus people in her neighborhood to be able to fit in.

The movies soundtrack fit perfectly with the action and scenery going on in the movie. Most of the songs were slow tempoed, to show how serious the moments in the film were.  Some of the songs on the soundtrack have their own special meaning behind them, but still relate back to the message of the movie. The soundtrack album for the movie that is available for purchase is a total of 20 songs and these songs just include instrumentals written by Dustin O’Halloran.  

The movie got good reviews from major critics such as The Rolling Stones , Variety, and The Washington Post, the movie was “Elegantly structured”, “Brilliantly Modulated Act between dark and light”, and “it is impossible to over-praise Stenberg’s incandescent performance.”

The actors chosen for the movie were the perfect choice. From Amandla Stenberg to Drew Starkly I have no doubt there would have been anyone better to play these roles. The actors held emotion throughout the whole movie and allowed you to feel the emotions with them. Seeing these actors and the emotion they had throughout the movie, and how they acted with each other made it clear why they were cast.  

About the Author

Courtney Fitzgerald

Contributor

Courtney Fitzgerald is a senior at Malden High School. She has been in The Blue and Gold for four years now and really enjoys it. Writing and photography are some of the things that drew Fitzgerald to journalism, but she continues to find more aspects she enjoys along the way. Outside of school, Fitzgerald enjoys listening to music and hanging with her sister. She has four sisters but enjoys mostly hanging out with her closest in age sister. Fitzgerald is also a dancer outside of school and has been for 14 years now. She takes Jazz, Pointe and Ballet classes, but mostly enjoys her ballet class. Although journalism is not something she sees in her future as a career, Fitzgerald still enjoys taking the class and learning more about what it takes to be a reporter.

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