It takes significant courage and conviction for a filmmaker to create a documentary that paints them in a less than flattering light. Husband and wife co-directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson have done exactly that with their vital, heartbreaking new feature, American Promise. The Brewster and Stephenson of the film are presented as relentlessly overbearing parents who browbeat their children with lofty expectations. It is a testament to the directors’ zeal that self-aggrandizement takes a backseat to their intensely personal activism. Their passion is directed squarely at the subjects of equality, opportunity, and investment in American education, specifically as they affect black boys.
American Promise resembles Michael Apted’s Up documentary project in miniature. Shot over the course of 13 years, the film presents an intimate portrait of the filmmakers’ son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun. Chronicling the boys’ journey through New York’s Dalton School—one of the most prestigious prep schools in the nation—the film draws from countless hours of footage captured with handheld consumer cameras. That the result feels not only narratively coherent but propulsive and wrenching is a testament to the strength of the raw materials and the nimbleness of the filmmakers’ storytelling skills.
Their tale finds Idris and Seun squeezed between two immovable objects. On one side are the intimidating academic standards pushed by their parents and school. On the other are the condescendingly low expectations that hang like an albatross around the necks of young black males. Besides raising awareness of the double standards and soft bigotry that the bedevil boys of color, the film’s overwhelming effect is to evoke pained empathy for the specific experiences of Idris and Seun. Observing their anguish as the vice of family, classroom, and society presses in on them is a raw, humane, and essential experience.
American Promise screens nightly at 7:30 p.m. on January 30–31 and February 2 at Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium. Admission is $6 (cash only).
