Streaming: ˋBetween the World and Me'

Filmed in August 2020, the documentary adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2015 blockbuster book “Between the World and Me” brings this critical text up to our present moment. Coates, inspired himself by James Baldwin’s monumentally important missive “The Fire Next Time,” conceived his book as a letter to his son and, in the film version, each speaker addresses their recitation of a passage to their own loved one.

Director Kamilah Forbes, who leads the Apollo Theater, where this adaptation was first staged, films people in their own pods. The documentary stars a who’s who of notable actors and public figures—excerpts are voiced by everyone from Angela Davis to Angela Bassett, Oprah Winfrey to Janet Mock. Strong hip-hop interludes feature Tariq Trotter (Black Thought from the Roots).

Mahershala Ali voices a critical section about Coates’ time as a Howard University undergrad. His monologue is expertly delivered, full of emotion that underlines Coates’s defining “between the world and me” quote. Ali again flashes his transcendent talent, which shows up whether he’s given strong material like “Moonlight” or weak material like “Green Book.” The Howard section also includes a now quite poignant appearance by Chadwick Boseman, who gave a moving commencement address before his death.

The joyousness of the Howard section is quickly undercut by the ensuing segment, in which Coates ruminates on his young classmate, Prince, who was shot to death by a policeman in his early 20s. One advantage of the documentary form is that we get to see many photos of the young man, gone too soon. Speaking from the perspective of Prince’s mother, Phylicia Rashad’s performance is almost unbearably excellent.

A series of montages mix images from the Civil Rights Movement with the present day #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations—we move from the state troopers who saw fit to beat John Lewis straight to the St. Louis couple who leveraged brandishing AR-15s at peaceful protestors to a primetime spot at the Republican National Convention.

Video of Amy Cooper, the woman who called the police on a black birdwatcher in Central Park, connects to a passage in the book where the aggressive white woman pushes Coates’s 4-year-old son at a movie theater on the Upper West Side. She hisses, “I could have you arrested,” when Coates protests. “Between the World and Me,” a book written in the year police choked Eric Garner to death, finds its logical endpoint with a new, wrenching interview with Breonna Taylor’s mother, who describes the evening of her daughter’s death.

Coates, who appears at the end of the film, twice mentions that, for his son, “The struggle is all I have to offer you,” in our “terrible and beautiful world”—and this film shows as much of that beauty as it can. As you absorb the long end credits scroll of black Americans killed by the police, recall also Coates’ exhortation that “The pursuit of knowing is freedom.” Be inspired to read Coates’s book, Baldwin’s book, and many more.

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