The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, March 10, 2017 — 5

‘Rise’ and LGBT issues

On Friday June 26th, 2015, 

the justices of the Supreme 
Court of the United States ruled 
that same-sex couples had the 
right to marry nationwide, 
sending 
the 
country 
into 

a state of celebration and, 
in 
some 
places, 
fervent 

opposition. 
Although 
the 

White 
House 

may have been 
lit up in rainbow 
lights that day 
in 
solidarity, 

the 
SCOTUS’s 

decision 
wasn’t 

unanimous; 
it 

was a 5 to 4 vote. Ever since 
then, the rights of the LGBTQ 
community have been under 
assault, in situations that both 
do and do not receive national 
attention.

“When We Rise,” ABC’s 

four night TV special, begins 
in the ‘70s to tell the story of 
a few individuals who were 
fighting 
for 
these 
rights, 

which did not end with the 
right to a marriage certificate. 
These years were by no means 
the beginning of the struggle 
for the LGBTQ community, 
but a time in which issues 
surrounding sexuality — and 
the right to love and/or sleep 
with someone of any gender — 
were receiving more national 
attention than ever before. 
It travels through time to 
the beginning and growing 

fear of the AIDS crisis, often 
focusing on cities. While most 
of the people themselves are 
fictionalized — though the 
show does follow the story of 
Harvey Milk’s rise, fame and 
assassination — the challenges 
that 
they 
face 
feel 
more 

relevant now than ever.

At times, the stories in 

“When We Rise” are woven 
together with precision and 
delicacy; at others, they are full 

of schmaltz and 
sentimentality 
(it 
includes 

the line “Your 
summer of love 
turned 
into 
a 

winter of heroin 
a long time ago.”) 
In the opening 
episodes 
the 

show reveals the dislike and 
exclusion 
of 
lesbians 
and 

other queer women in certain 
groups in the women’s rights 
movement. But the rendering 
of this feels like a tongue-in-
cheek move; the women who 
voice those views sound more 
like the white women from 
“The Help” whose ideas are 
also framed to be laughed at 
at times, rather than people 
with 
harmful 
views 
who 

were fracturing a movement. 
However, the writing of the 
show captures the flipsides 
of issue like these with more 
accuracy: the reluctance to 
associate 
with 
terms 
like 

lesbian or dyke even if there 
is a personal connection to the 
connotations. A few quiet but 
powerful scenes show a black 
man’s progress in fighting 

racism in the military while 
still having to deal with the 
pervasiveness of homophobia 
— 
all 
while 
keeping 
his 

sexuality a secret.

The writers of the show are 

more successful in showing 
how the struggle for LGBTQ 
rights was impacted by and 
affected by other movements 
for social progress — the 
Women’s Rights Movement, 
the Civil Rights Movement 
and the Antiwar movement 
— than it is in showing 
complications 
of 
personal 

stories in such a short amount 
of space and time. While the 
performances are fine, they 
skew 
towards 
feeling 
like 

those hokey reenactments in 
historical documentaries.

“When 
We 
Rise” 
isn’t 

always the heart-wrenching 
drama that it often tries to 
be. It’s overtly sentimental, 
several makeout scenes are 
awkwardly 
high-school 

worthy, and there are subplots 
revolving around the lesbians 
that feel more like a joke’s 
punchline than an attempt 
at a real story. But the show 
does get a few things right: 
the momentum of youth, the 
importance of physical spaces 
for queer communities, the 
fierce pride and joy of loving 
acceptance — and, perhaps 
most chillingly, the shock that 
a gunshot-like sound makes 
in the middle of an upbeat 
scene 
because 
we 
already 

believe that someone would 
threaten the safety of those 
involved because of their quiet 
happiness. 

ABC

SOPHIA KAUFMAN
Daily Book Review Editor
‘Fall’ & the millenial condition

The film adaptation of Lauren 

Oliver’s 
YA 
novel 
“Before 

I Fall” is the philosophical 
“Groundhog Day” for the selfie 
generation 
that 

pensive 
teens 

have been waiting 
for. Director Ry 
Russo-Young 
(“Nobody Walks”) 
ensures that the 
young adult flick 
goes 
beyond 

the 
overused 
YOLO 
theme 

and approaches the familiar 
plot with a certain nuance 
that many teen movies lack. 
The film follows Samantha 
Kingston (Zoey Deutch, “Why 
Him?”), who seemingly has 
it all: the douchey boyfriend, 
the giggly clique and the legs 
of Gigi Hadid. Sam realizes 
that her life may not be as 
flawless as it seems as she 
relives the day leading up to a 
fateful car accident again and 
again. Throughout her déjà vu 
adventures, Sam shifts from a 
selfish queen bee to a caring, 
mindful friend.

At the film’s start, Sam and 

her posse are unbearably basic. 
They 
Snapchat 
everything, 

they shriek one too many 
times and they say things like 
“bae” and “Should I post this?” 

What at first is an irritating 
representation of today’s teens 
soon becomes a scarily accurate 
portrayal of this generation. 
While Sam is evolving with 
each rendition of her last day, 
her friends are stagnant. No 
matter how much she grows 

one 
day, 
her 

buddies make the 
same 
immature 

remarks the next 
day. 
Yet, 
the 

friendship of Sam 
and 
her 
clique 

goes far beyond 
the surface level. 

While other teen movies may 
focus on the romantic, “Before 
I Fall” brings some much-
needed attention to the value of 
friendship for the average teen 
girl.

“Before I Fall” manages to 

capture Sam’s personal growth, 
while allowing her to develop 
relationships 
and 
storylines 

with her surrounding cast of 
characters, all within the frame 
of one repetitive day. From 
the loving gaze of a childhood 
crush 
to 
the 
unapologetic 

sexuality of the token lesbian, 
from the relentlessly bullied 
misunderstood loner to the 
adorable little sister with a 
lisp, Sam attempts to mend the 
relationships she has failed 
to foster. Sam is, at the film’s 
beginning, self-absorbed and 
cruel, but after repeating the 

same day the same way, she 
realizes 
something 
needs 

to 
change. 
What 
begins 

as 
confusion 
turns 
into 

indifference, then anger. Only 
then does Sam decide to take 
charge of her fate and make her 
last day a worthy one.

What 
“Before 
I 
Fall” 

accomplishes is Sam’s struggle 
to discover what she needs to 
change in herself and in her 
relationships in order to end 
the cycle that afflicts her. Sam 
becomes 
increasingly 
more 

aware of her shortcomings 
with each rendition, leaving 
everyday a little wiser. While 
the film is a loop of the same 
day, Deutch turns what might 
initially feel mundane into 
a captivating narrative. Her 
performance 
adds 
layers 

of 
depth 
and 
sincerity 
to 

her 
character’s 
struggle, 

making Sam’s redemption an 
endearing one. Sam’s growth 
is the hallmark of the film, 
leaving viewers satisfied by 
her metamorphosis, yet the 
ending is exactly that — an 
ending. What the audience fails 
to realize at the film’s finish is 
that Sam is in fact reliving her 
last day, the last day before she 
fell. Sam’s path to discovering 
empathy is paved with the 
lessons she has learned and 
the love she has gained, yet the 
viewer still craves redemption 
for Sam after February 12th. 

TV REVIEW

“And We Rise”

ABC

6 episode mini-

series

OPEN ROAD FILMS

REBECCA PORTMAN

For the Daily

FILM REVIEW

‘Refugees’ humanizes

It takes a certain type of 

genius to write endings the 
way Viet Thanh Nguyen does: 
with candor, poetic grace and a 
haunting emotional spark that 
sticks. In his newest collection 
of short stories, “The Refugees,” 
Nguyen’s endings 
don’t 
merely 

slap 
on 
some 

haphazard 
finishing touches; 
they ripen each 
story’s 
content, 

leaving them to bloom and 
tickle the mind even after the 
book has finished.

“Black-Eyed 
Women,” 

the first story of the book, 
is 
a 
satisfying, 
immersive 

introduction 
to 
Nguyen’s 

style. It follows a Vietnamese 
ghostwriter who lives with her 
aging mother; the two women 
are visited by the ghost of the 
writer’s 
brother, 
who 
died 

years earlier when the family 
was fleeing the war. Nguyen is 
intimately masterful in the way 
he describes the awkward first 
meeting between the sister, 
now a middle-aged spinster, 
and her brother’s waterlogged 
spirit, who swam for years to 
get to America. As the details 
of her brother’s death and 
the circumstances of that day 

are revealed, the suspenseful 
buildup to the story’s broiling 
emotional 
climax 
is 
heart-

stoppingly memorable, at times 
difficult to read and persistently 
hard-hitting.

The 
stories 
in 
“The 

Refugees” 
have 
several 

common 
themes 
— 
family, 

alienation, independence and 
personal growth — but the book 
never feels repetitive. This is 

due in part to 
the 
drastically 

different 
main 

characters 
and 

situations 
that 

live in each story 
world, 
from 
a 

woman whose ailing husband 
mistakes her for a former lover 
to a young man with a host 
family comprised of a gay couple 
adjusting to life in America. 
Many 
of 
the 
stories 
also 

involve strained relationships 
between parents and children. 
Sometimes the problem is due 
to a generational conflict, and 
other times it’s more influenced 
by culture, but the pain and 
anger depicted is immediately 
understood by anyone who has 
ever argued with their parents 
(or their children!).

Most 
characters 
in 
the 

book 
are 
either 
related 

to 
an 
immigrant 
or 
an 

immigrant themselves. “The 
Refugees” 
implores 
readers 

to remember that, in the end, 
refugees are people. Nguyen 

delicately balances relatable, 
fundamentally human conflicts 
with cultural identity issues 
that not everyone may have 
personal experience with.

“The Refugees” is almost 

disarmingly 
realistic 
in 
its 

candid depictions of imperfect 
lives; it’s easy to forget that 
the stories are fiction and read 
them as a collection of memoirs. 
“Fatherland” recounts 23 year 
old Phuong’s excitement when 
Vivien, her stepsister from her 
father’s first marriage comes 
to visit Saigon; the first contact 
the two have ever had. Because 
she grew up in Chicago, Vivien 
is glamorous, wealthy, and 
successful, everything Phuong 
wants to become. But when 
Phuong finds out that Vivien’s 
“perfect” life is actually a 
facade, she’s left to deal with 
the 
rubble 
of 
her 
broken 

expectations, a process that 
reveals her inner strength to 
herself and the reader. 

Nguyen reminds us that 

regardless of where we are 
from, 
human 
beings 
react 

to conflict in the same ways. 
When faced with those who 
are unlike us, it’s important not 
to close off, as Carver learns 
when he struggles to reconcile 
with his daughter in “The 
Americans,” and not to judge 
too quickly, as Phuong realizes 
in “Fatherland.” The best we 
can do is to keep an empathetic, 
open mind.

SAMANTHA LU
Daily Arts Writer

“The Refugees”

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Grove Press

BOOK REVIEW

“Before I Fall”

Rave Cinemas, 

Goodrich Quality 16

Open Road Films 

‘Pass’ and life after loss

From the opening pages of 

“This Too Shall Pass,” it’s clear 
that this book is more than what 
meets the eye, and definitely 
a book not to be judged from 
its cover. The summary on the 
book explains that the story 
follows Blanca, 
a 
40-year-old 

mother of two 
who 
is 
now 

having to cope 
with the loss 
of 
her 
own 

mother through dementia, but 
this sells the story short. At first 
this seems like the book would 
be a harrowing experience for 
the reader; however this is 
entirely not the case. This book 
is a treasure trove of witty 
insights, with a very modern 
take on living with loss.

Translated from the original 

Spanish — and set in Spain — 
reading this book feels like a 
lovely trip to the Mediterranean 
with a few friends. Despite 
the sombre beginnings, and 
Blanca’s constant referrals to 
“you,” her deceased mother, the 
book maintains an unusually 
optimistic tone. Blanca is a deep, 
real and quirky main character, 
and despite the brevity of the 
book, her insights on the world 
are 
both 
inspirational 
and 

intelligent. Her interactions 
with other characters in the 
book are unusually brief, and 

no quotation marks are used; 
instead dashes indicate the 
start of speech, and the end has 
to be inferred by the reader as 
there is no clear change from 
the end of a character talking 
to Blanca’s personal thoughts. 
This 
quickly 
draws 
the 

attention back to our heroine’s 
inner monologues, which are 
the highlight of the book, and 
definitely more interesting that 

what 
the 
side 

characters have 
to say.

The 
entirety 

of 
“This 
Too 

Shall 
Pass” 

feels 
like 
an 

in-depth character analysis of 
the main character, more than 
a romance or tragedy. Blanca 
stumbles through encounters 
with lovers and ex-husbands 
in several scenarios, but these 
men are just fleeting moments 
before we are returned to 
Blanca once again pondering 
her 
relationship 
with 
her 

lost 
mother. 
Although 
this 

may seem to distract from 
the current events, it is these 
flashbacks 
and 
ponderings 

that are really the highlight of 
this book. Through these we 
learn the convoluted history 
between 
Blanca 
and 
her 

mother, and throughout the 
book these emotions of loss 
and conflicted love between 
mother and daughters serve 
to create a lovely mosaic of 
the history between the two 
women. 
Because 
the 
book 

is written from the author’s 

own experience of losing her 
mother, it is easy to see where 
the emotional inspiration came 
from; at times it feels like the 
reader is peeking into a diary.

This book is a completely 

uplifting 
and 
eye-opening 

experience, as it goes through 
emotions that many people 
may 
not 
have 
experienced 

themselves, and shows how 
there’s always a way out of 
the other side of hardship. 
Regardless of the reader’s age, 
it’s incredible insightful and 
all the characters offer small 
tidbits into their lives. Blanca 
is a wonderful protagonist 
that isn’t perfect in many 
ways, but her bumbling and 
convoluted ramblings make her 
compassionate and someone 
who you’d want to get a beer 
with. The book never feels 
dragged out, and the ending 
is open for interpretations; 
it doesn’t feel like it has a 
conclusion. It is both wistful 
and upbeat and fits the theme 
of the hopefulness that the 
book carries with it.

MEGAN WILLIAMS

Daily Arts Writer

“This Too Shall Pass”

Milena Busquets

Hogarth

BOOK REVIEW

From the opening 

pages, it’s clear 
that this book is 
more than what 
meets the eye