TV-14 | 1h 42m | Drama | 2019
The lockdowns of 2020 were traumatic for Americans, but there were a few silver linings. Kids were sent home because both public and private schools were shut down during the COVID-19 hysteria; they continued their schoolwork at home through laptops. When this happened, their parents got a gander at all of the poisonous indoctrination their children were being subjected to.
Things begin in the District of Columbia, where Virginia (Uzo Aduba) is struggling to raise her 15-year-old son James (Niles Fitch) in an impoverished neighborhood. Although James shows signs of being a bright kid, Virginia is concerned about him since he keeps receiving bad grades.
A Mother Steps Up
Determined to get to the bottom of things, Virginia marches down to her son’s shabby public high school (complete with a metal detector) to meet with the principal. He tells her that the only thing James is good at is skipping school, and hands her one of his F-graded school tests. But the paper also has some of James’s artistic doodles drawn on it, which hints at his latent artistic talent.
While in a class one day, a smart kid named Jerome (Ethan Herisse) answers a teacher’s question correctly, which offends the local bully, Bonz (Nadji Jeter). When school lets out, James witnesses Bonz and a few other kids jump Jerome and beat him down. Bonz tells James that if he doesn’t join in, he’ll be the next victim, so James steps on Jerome’s glasses instead of assaulting the poor kid directly.
As a result of the beating, James is suspended from school. Virginia picks her son up and, on the way home, they come across a pristine private school. Desperate to get James out of the public school because of the potential danger to his safety, she tries to get him enrolled in the private school, even though it’s in the middle of a school term. Virginia manages to enroll him. There’s just one problem: She’ll have to take any extra odd jobs she can (in addition to her daily call center gig) in order to pay the costs associated with private academic institutions.
While James begins to thrive at the new private school, life back home is another story. He begins to hang out with Bonz and the drug dealers he works for. Tempted by the lure of fast money, James eventually starts to deal drugs just like Bonz.
Meanwhile, Virginia becomes increasingly curious about the state of the local District of Columbia school system after she stumbles upon some budgetary discrepancies while working a janitorial job.
This causes her to seek out a politician who seems to be an advocate for helping underserved children, Congressman Cliff Williams (Matthew Modine). But when she finally tracks him down, he blows her off. Undaunted, she becomes increasingly involved with her local community and begins to organize with like-minded, struggling parents who want more for their kids’ education.
Virginia suddenly finds herself being catapulted to the forefront of the powerful grassroots movement she created, despite being almost too nervous to speak in front of a microphone. She even gets the attention of Congressman Williams, who sees in her an indomitable spirit that might just succeed where he has failed in the past. Virginia plans to get legislation passed in the form of federally funded scholarships for inner-city youth.
Great Performances
I must say that one of the things that struck me right away was how realistic the acting performances were in this movie. For instance, there’s a scene where Virginia is eating dinner with James, and he doesn’t yet know that she has found out about his class-skipping and bad grades. She stares across the table at her son with a withering gaze (I witnessed this same smoldering gaze myself as a kid), and although she’s angered by his deception, she forces him to study with her instead of lashing out and causing even more problems.Uzo Aduba is an incredibly gifted actor; she is able to use subtle facial cues and body language to convey what she’s thinking or feeling. Indeed, the entire cast is top-drawer from the main actors to the supporting cast. It was also great to see that Matthew Modine hasn’t lost any of his touch. His performance as a somewhat compromised politician who still has some good left in him is both commendable and memorable, even if he’s only in a handful of scenes.
“Miss Virginia” is a wonderful film based on real events that shows the powerful change ordinary folks can bring about once they get organized behind righteous causes.
