We all know this story by now, where a white guy with mental issues goes into a school - usually, as it so horrifically and not always inexplicably, an elementary or middle school - and starts to shoot up the place. After Newtown, there's not much going back, but what's fascinating here is that this is based on an actual event that did happen at a school post Newtown and that somehow no one was hurt and got out fine. It may be too simple that we're just seeing these events more or less in real-time as they happened. What makes it significant, and what I assume is how it got so far into the Oscar race among the five live-action films, is that it takes a real event and makes it about the framing.
At first, as I was watching it and immediately after it ended, I found the whole dynamic that occurs here a little questionable - this all takes place within the area of the school by the front desk, where Tarra Riggs is there (anyone else who was there at first runs off, one guy even incredulous sees the gun and thinks it's a joke before going away) and the character Bo Mitchell not plays but inhabits to the point I thought the director pulled a stunt casting out of the 15:17 to Paris book (only here it working). What was questionable was that, hey, this nice, soothing black woman will help ease this troubled white guy down so he'll give up. But that's not, upon some further reflection, what was exactly going on here. When you have a story like this it's about the framing, and that's where it counts.
What I mean is, if this had solely been from the Bo Mitchell character's perspective, like if we saw more of his preparation and followed along with him ala Elephant, our point of view would be different. It's a little more complex by how we're simply being shown this event, at least at first, of the guy pulling out a gun and locking down the school and cops show up et al, and then... little by little, over a minute or two, Tara Riggs does take control without having to do anything more than go along with this troubled man's doubts about what he's doing (or maybe it's her face, trying in some desperate hope to reach him through what may be real or unreal sympathy). This is what POC and women have to put up with, but they do it through far more bravery and heart than many people will acknowledge.
In other words, the point of this short isn't to see types, but to see a situation unfold but with enough strokes of a story to make an impact. It all goes by so fast too that by the end it feels like it should go on longer, and I mean that in a good way. It's intense and gripping and it understands humanity so well that it asks us: what can we *DO* about this?
