The Public: Movie Review

A couple days ago I was mentioning my desire to go see “The Public”, a new film by and staring Emilio Estevez about homelessness and libraries while it was still in the theatre. A friend of mine, one of our donors, generously gave me some cash to take a couple of our friends. We all came out of the film talking about how much lovable (sometimes less so) characters reminded us of folks we know from the streets and I just have to share some of my thoughts with you.

A number of folks whose work in our field I truly admire had already seen it and had come away with glowing reviews. That’s no small thing by itself. In recent decades many if not most films that have used houseless people as characters have done so in a way that is rarely humanizing, treating them as props to propel the protagonists story arc forward. In more recent films like Shelter, Time Out of Mind, or Being Flynn (based on The NY Times bestselling memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) they feel hyper-realistic but in a way that has you disliking all of the characters by the end of the film, or they’re dead, and there’s nothing a viewer could walk away challenged to do. There’s a place for that kind of film but once I’ve seen them I never want to see any of them ever again. They’re all just so devoid of any laughter or humor and none of them ever get past being stories of mostly hopeless individuals making choices by and for themselves.

The Public, however is a film I cannot recommend strongly enough.

I’ve really only seen one other film, Lady in the Van, that I’ve thought portrayed houseless people as full characters capable of laughter, joy, able to be part of a community, without just making them the butt of the joke. The Public is more drama with parts that are genuinely funny and heartfelt moments as characters are shown to have complex back-stories all their own that are only hinted at though-out the film.

It also is willing to ask a lot of it’s audience challenging some of the self-congratulatory charity that is often passed down to our poorest neighbors. Early in the film there is a scene where Estevez’s character, Stuart Goodson, a librarian, is talking to Jackson an unhoused patron of the library with whom he’s become particularly close:

GOODSON: It’s going to be brutal the next couple of nights for sure.

JACKSON: We could all come stay at your place.

GOODSON: I would if I could.

JACKSON: You could but you won’t. No judgment here, though.

GOODSON: Look, Jackson, [Goodson hands Jackson some bills as Jackson’s friends look on wide eyed] use it to get some food, maybe a room.

JACKSON: You’re going to offer me money and then tell me what to do with it?

GOODSON: Well, no. I was just suggesting a few things that I thought you might need. That’s all.

JACKSON: How do you know what I need?

Let them who has ears hear.

But the film isn’t just critical, it’s also a picture of unhoused people taking actions into their own hands and it’s also full of characters who rise to the opportunity to be in solidarity with their poorest neighbors, at times putting their jobs and even lives on the line. This is important to us because here in Portland we’ve seen this play out before. We’ve watched groups like organize for themselves in forms such as Dignity Village, Right 2 Survive, and Hazelnut Grove and we need films that show houseless people as ACTORS in their own stories and in their own right instead of just as people who are just ACTED upon.

Librarian Stuart Goodson (Emilio Estevez) and library patron Jackson (Michael K. Williams) in “The Public” (2019)

Not everyone has seen the film this way. As of this writing the film has less than stellar 60% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes cited critics. Some of the films detractors such as Allan Ng have such as suggested that the film’s depiction of police and city officials as over-the-top or based on a good/evil binary (again I’d like to point out that, excluding some excellent documentaries, I can count the number of films I’ve seen that don’t portray unhoused folks with sub-human caricatures or with patronizing tropes on 1 hand). Instead in this film we have Alec Baldwin and Jeffery Wright’s characters who both struggle with making difficult moral decisions given their own complicated contexts. Furthermore when Ng contends that the film “now comes across as heavy-handed fiction, which creates an emotional disconnection with the very real plight of homelessness” I have to say I’m confused about what discontent he might be referring to. Is he suggesting that the police and city would not absolutely use excessive force to expel people attempting to seek refuge from the elements in this way? Perhaps instead he is suggesting that the hostile relationship between police and unhoused citizens is just undeserved or unrealistic? I think Mr. Ng perhaps needs – as well as the rest of us for that matter – to spend a little more time listening to some stories from folks on the street.

Frustrating that it is presently showing on only 1 small screen for an afternoon matinee here in the Portland Metro; I wish everyone could get to see this amazing film.

If it’s playing in a city near you it’s REALLY worth the time and money to see.