A promising medical student must come to terms with her husband receiving an eight year prison sentence, which leads her on a journey of self-discovery in the process. She considers leaving him for a charming bus driver...
Before directing Selma, Ava Duverny made Middle of Nowhere (2012), a small story about a woman who put her aspirations on hold when her husband goes to prison.
Made by a black American woman, about a black American woman, it's a study of a culture where the matriarchs are strong by necessity and trapped by circumstance - adrift in the middle of nowhere.
This isn't about dramatic revelations and charge confrontations. DuVernay, who also wrote the original screenplay, has made a film about those moments lived between the decisions...
Burrows deep into a lower working-class, primarily female African-American milieu and culture rarely presented onscreen with any sort of realism or understanding.
Though writer-director Ava DuVernay avoids any and all cliché right up until the closing titles, I have no qualms ending this review with one: I wholeheartedly look forward to her next project.
