Here’s a film that refreshingly acknowledges various elephants in cinema’s crowded living room: racism, the interracial sex taboo and class war. It’s an elegant, angular campus satire with a little of Alexander Payne’s dyspeptic Election – though the edge is slightly dulled by the final credits, particularly the final romantic pairing.
Tessa Thompson plays Sam, a radical mixed-race woman who has a popular student-radio slot called Dear White People, mocking white liberals’ pretensions. When she is unexpectedly voted student house leader, defeating her ex-boyfriend Troy (Brandon P Bell), this ambitious young man decides to pump up his CV by joining an all-white humour magazine with the appalling title of Pastiche, who are trying to think up a gimmick for their annual party.
An anonymous troublemaker fires out a hoax invite with a “Liberate Your Inner Negro” theme, which is instantly taken up by all the casual racists, and the event becomes a scandal. It’s reported on by the gay black would-be journalist Lionel Higgins (Tyler James Higgins), who complains his Afro has become a black hole for patronising white fingers. The movie’s acidly knowing comment drains away as the romantic drama advances and resolves, but it’s clever and entertaining.
