Real Talk
Starring Jasmine Charmichael; written and directed by Preston A Whitemore 2
Rating: ** ½
There is no greater responsibility in this world than saving lives. You could be a doctor, a marriage counsellor, a priest…Or, like the heroine of this little-known but highly relevant film , a radio-show host. Your job is to stop people from taking the wrong turn in life.
Meet Dominique ‘The Dame’. A Stanford graduate,her radio show Real Talk rules the waves. She is the undisputed queen of all that she surveys from the snazzy booth of her radio stations where every night, she is questioned on her socio-political ideology and allegiance to the black community.
The film, with its sharply-cutting repartees thrown at the attractive RJ by people she scarcely knows,is a treat to hear and watch. When it opens we see Dominique has serious problems with her love life as she heads for the studio.Being a talkathon, the narrative ensures it doesn’t end up being a radio on cinema. The visual are imperative to the drama that develops from the snapchats that Dominique has with strangers, semi-strangers and people whom, we understand, she has built a rapport with over the ….Months? Years?
How long has Dominique’s show being on air? We are not spoonfed any back history to satiate our curiosity on the genesis of the talk show .All we have is the now. The immediate present where through her interactions , we get to know a truckload about the opinionated borderline-arrogant Dominique and the black community which apparently tunes in to her topical tattle every night.
The radio-listener equation is effectively constructed as Dominique’s conversations with her listeners go from the cocky to the spiritual.
Everything changes when, all of a sudden, a young pregnant teenager calls in on Dominque’s show and threatens to commit suicide. Here-on the narrative acquires the hectic hue of a race-against-time thriller whereby the suicidal girl must be found before it’s too late. The way in which the radio community of listeners: host, priest(Michael Beach, known to Dominique as the priest of her parish who saw her navigate through her tough childhood and teens) , even the radio-station owners pitch in to save the suicidal girl’s life shows us how the media can be powered to make a real difference to people’s lives.
This little film with a big message doesn’t allow itself to drown in polemics. The head remains above the water as the volley of airwave interaction covers a gamut of topical messages. Not for a minute did I feel I was watching a closed-in film about a radio-show hostess and her encounter with various people , troubled, tormented, amused or otherwise, just seeking some fun by calling up a woman who wears her power on her sleeve.
I remember Jasmine Charmichael from Romeo & Juliet In Harlem in 2017 where she was part of an all-Black version of Shakespeare’s play. In Real Talk Ms Charmichael is still addressing issues pertinent to the Black community.And that’s fine. At least she is not pretending to be colour blind , as has become fashionable in American cinema.