QuickTake: A Lot of Nothing (2022)

Director: Mo McRae. Starring: Cleopatra Coleman, Y'lan Noel, Shamier Anderson, Lex Scott Davis, Justin Hartley. Release: DVD and Blu-ray.

A successful black couple discover that their white neighbor is the cop who just shot a black kid, and they decide to do something about it. That’s about all you should know about the plot going into this film, except of course that the title is grossly misleading, because there’s a whole lot of something at play here.

Taking the pedestrian revenge setup for an emotional roller coaster ride, the film's true aim is to explore black identity in a systemically racist modern America. What does it mean to be a black person in America? Especially a successful black person. The couple is doing well for themselves, very well in fact, but every day they have to "play along" and casually shrug off deeply racist and insensitive comments from their coworkers, a situation that has hollowed out their identity, making way for the dramatic turn of events that follow.

Director Mo McRae bides his time before getting to that drama, though, opting instead to carefully construct a razor-sharp portrayal of the couple. The deceptively simple opening, for example, shows the couple's initial reaction to the killing of the black kid, presented as an extended, seemingly uninterrupted shot, which lays down the foundation of what’s to come. The opening explores the couple's different experiences of being black in corporate America, while picking at the their fragile bond, and also coming up with some hilarious moments that expose the impotence of social media outrage culture.

Later, when the story takes a violent turn, the anger, frustration and shame rise to the surface, and the film really sinks its teeth into some interesting themes. Layer upon layer of themes are woven intro the story, as the couple deal with a violent decision, while simultaneously playing host to the man’s less successful brother and his new hippie, crystal-gripping, very pregnant girlfriend.

The conflicts are expanded, twisted, still using that simple original set-up, with one location and barely a handful of characters, before we end up in a stunning finale, full of unpleasant answers to impossible questions and some genuinely heartfelt final moments.

Sometimes A Lot of Nothing is labeled as a comedy. Other times it sounds merely like a black version of countless other revenge stories. Neither of those descriptions are true. This is something else entirely, and well worth checking out.