Page 2 July 5 , 2018
The Stars Beneath Our Feet Helps
Build Bridges From Social Debris
Reviewed by Tommy Vinh Bui,
MLIS, Associate Librarian,
Inglewood Public Library
Summer is in full swing and there’re a
bounty of brainy books beckoning from our
shelves to be plucked and pondered through
as we speak. And one in particular might just
be the remedy for the summer slump and
offer ready respite from the stultifying Celsius
and sun-soaked concrete outside. So find a
shaded corner of our amply air-conditioned
library and delve into this week’s winsome
whopper of bookly whimsy.
The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David
Barclay Moore offers a surfeit of surefire
summer insights. This Young Adult novel
features a protagonist undergoing the
gauntlet of trying trials and troublesome
tribulations of adolescence. Young Lolly
lives with his mother in Harlem and has an
affinity for design and architecture that he
expresses through his acute adroitness with
Legos. The Legos become a refuge from
the hardships of urban living and coming
of age in a neighborhood blighted by bouts
of street violence. His imagination becomes
a safe haven from the cacophonous social
inequalities with which inner city children
wrestle. Often angry and confronted with
moral confusion, Lolly manages to think
outside the box and wield creativity to his
advantage to build a barrier to protect himself
from class injustices Lego brick by Lego
brick at a time.
His family is suddenly wrought with tragedy
as Lolly’s beloved older brother Jermaine
becomes a victim of gun violence. Lolly’s
Lego pastime immediately takes on new
significance as an outlet for his grief and
survivor’s guilt. The healing process is long
and arduous and we’re exigently engrossed
in his narrative of overcoming challenges
and personal adversity. Lolly is continually
pressed to make critical and life-changing
Entertainment
Check It Out Film Review
Joaquin Phoenix Plays a Brutal
Contract Killer in Arthouse Film
By Ryan Rojas
for www.cinemacy.com
In the life of a contract killer, one is required
to maintain complete control in the
midst of chaos in order to stay alive. Now
add in the variable of companionship, and
this contingency becomes a vulnerability and
jeopardizing to one’s life. This is the synopsis
of director Lynne Ramsay’s provocative
arthouse film, You Were Never Really Here.
You Were Never Really Here is the story
of a murder-for-hire killer, Joe (Joaquin
Phoenix), who lives a life of dark solace in
modern-day New York City. A burly bear
of a man, Joe is silent and consumed with
his own thoughts -- blending into the city
background during the daylight hours before
operating in the night shadows as a monastic
mercenary. His lifestyle appears to be easy
except for the fact that Joe must care for his
aging mother (Judith Roberts), whose home
he returns to between jobs so that he can tend
to her in her declining mental state. One day,
a new job pops up – to locate the daughter
of a high-profile senator. Except in this case,
finding the girl, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov),
doesn’t mean the end of the job. Joe soon
realizes that he has waded into the criminal
underbelly of child trafficking, coordinated at
the highest levels. When the job goes south,
Joe must decide whether to retreat and live a
lone wolf life, or fight for her safety, which
would threaten everyone’s survival.
The pairing of Ramsay with Phoenix makes
for an electrifying experience. Both artists
don’t turn a blind eye to the heinous and horrific
parts of the human psyche. They full-tilt
bulldoze towards it. Phoenix delivers another
stunning performance in a role that requires
him to push to the fringes of human behavior.
He more than delivers in the moments of
mental anguish, like when Joe stows away in
the closet of his childhood home and wraps
a plastic bag over his head to relive moments
of childhood trauma to queasy effect.
The theme of control is something that
Ramsay has become acclaimed for mastering
in her movies. She pushes audiences past the
limits of their comfort zones to show the
depths of wickedness of which the human
species is capable. Her 2011 film, We Need
to Talk About Kevin, revealed a depth of sin
that borders on demonic. While Ramsay again
displays the depravity of human behavior
in You Were Never Really Here, she seems
more intent on exploring how people get
to become broken and how innocence can
become lost at the earliest of ages. When Joe
sees Nina experience horrors first-hand, he
realizes that the circle of abuse he endured
as a child continues despite all of his efforts
and is forced to question: Did he really save
her? Was he ever really there?
You Were Never Really Here is a crackling
action thriller with stunning cinematography
that shows artistic flourish. Ramsay
and Phoenix craft a morality drama that
shows how the best of efforts in a broken
world can still come up fruitless. Ramsay
wades into these waters to capture this
dark, depraved part of the very real human
psyche in an artfully electrifying fashion
and the result is a trip that cinephiles will
love to take.
85 minutes. You Were Never Really Here is
rated R for strong violence, disturbing and
grisly images, language, and brief nudity.
Now available on digital (Amazon) and on
Blu-ray & DVD July 17. •
You Were Never Really Here. Courtesy of Amazon Studios.
Ryan Rojas.
The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore.
decisions throughout the story -- decisions
that will irrevocably dictate and reroute the
course of his life toward either self-defeat and
resignation or redemption and understanding.
And we’re alongside Lolly every step of the
way rooting for his wellbeing.
The novel excels at providing a panoply
of underrepresented voices and seamlessly
incorporating them into the forefront of
the narrative fold. Characters are recruited
from an array of unique demographics and
offer insights from marginalized groups
historically not highlighted in YA fare. We
have LGBTQ characters playing prominent
roles and teens who fall within the autism
spectrum driving the story. At its heart,
the novel is about cultivating a strong
sense of belonging and community, and
finding compassion through kindness and
unexpected friendships.
David Barclay Moore writes with velocity
and panache and manages to authentically
capture an equal portion of hope and
harrowing. It’s a precarious tonal balance to
strike. The writer provides a frank portrayal
of hard realities like poverty, divorce and
bereavement whilst also somehow imbuing
the story with a distinct sense of humor,
optimism and Harlem bravado. Moore’s use
of regional language is particularly effective
in achieving this ambiance of aural precision.
The urban patois reads convincingly.
All said, it’s a considerable work that
should entice many a reader with its
strong themes of togetherness and healthy
relationships. The novel also serves as a
potent celebration of art and its ability to
inform and shape impressionable young
minds toward striving for excellence. The
story is a mindful mesh of A Portrait of
the Artist as a Young Man, Extremely Loud
& Incredibly Close, and A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn. It’s a most palatable potpourri of
past profound plots.
This peach of a page-turner is nigh-perfect,
palm-sized and primed to be perused. It sits
on our shelves waiting to whomp you with
a one-two of hard-won wisdom.
Summer’s quickly dwindling, so get to
your local library without delay… •
Tommy Vinh Bui.
“That’s the thing about books. They let you
travel without moving your feet.”
– Jhumpa Lahiri