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One of the most powerful and provocative films of 2022 is that of Elegance Bratton The inspection. Based on Bratton’s experiences and real life, the film follows a young gay black man, Ellis French (Jeremy Pope), who tries to escape the homophobia of his home life by joining the United States Marine Corps.
In the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era circa 2005, this decision proves dangerous for Ellis, whose identity becomes a potentially deadly secret. It’s a painfully poignant story that has garnered much critical acclaim. Oscar buzz is big and The inspection has already secured The Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best Feature, Best Lead Performance for Jeremy Pope, and Best Supporting Performance for Gabrielle Union, who plays Ellis’ abusive and homophobic mother, Inez French. The film also won a Golden Globe for Pope’s performance.
For Bratton, there was never anyone but Pope for the role of Ellis, both because of his talent and who he is and how he can represent queer black men. “This movie is something I wish I had as a teenager. I am very concerned about the plight of black people, queer men and queer people in general,” Bratton tells PRIDE. “In a world where one in two of us are likely to get HIV, eight times more likely to kill themselves, I think it was important to put a real black queer person in that role – in that Hero’s Journey way, right ? Set an example to these future generations that not only can they get better, but you have the power to make it better.”
“When I came into the Marine Corps, I thought I was useless, my mother kicked me out because I was gay,” Bratton recalled. “And then I went to training camp and my training instructors told me that my value was high because I could guard the guy on the left. And to my right. I wanted to give that value to a real black queer person so we could see us succeed through trial and triumph over struggle.”
Courtesy of A24
Listening to Bratton, Pope was visibly moved by the director’s words. “I’m a little surprised because I’ve never heard him talk like that. I was like, wow! Okay,” he joked to PRIDE. “[Elegance is] a special soul. And I think the thing that I just admire about him so much is that he was so willing to put himself on the front lines.
“I think when you tell your story, you tell your truth, which has a price. And once you give something, especially something like this, so personal, you can’t get it back,” Pope continues. “And when I contacted him about the story, he was saying, ‘and my mother died,'” she still went on. It wasn’t like, okay, it’s okay. It was still something he had to work through and heal. To invite me to go on this trip with him. I just said yes. And I will say yes, over and over and over.
The inspection | Official Trailer HD | A24
That Bratton truly sees the Pope for who he is and celebrates him means everything to the actor. “To hear someone defend me for who I am and everything that I am … it was a journey to get to that place of being confident and comfortable and being open and being a black queer actor,” Pope admits. “And to say I’m fine with that. And to say that I am not only this or that, I can be everything. So I’m just very grateful for the experience and grateful for the collaboration and the relationship.”
The Pope had equally kind words for his fellow Unionist. “To be able to work with someone like Gab who does the work on the street and in real life when the camera isn’t on…to watch her transform and personally go to a deep dark place to be a vessel again, for to create something in our art that is tangible to people out there who have been left behind and told they are worthless, that there is access to someone and some representation of something that tells you that you can do it too you are enough, you have always been more than enough. It’s such a gift and such an honor,” he says.
Courtesy of A24
Union, who is a proud and vocal ally and stepmother to trans daughter Zaya Wade, who she shares with husband Dwayne Wade, took on the role of homophobic Inez with a purpose. “I think the audience will see parts of themselves that they don’t want to admit,” she tells PRIDE. “That they’ve pushed, that they’ve whitewashed in a sense. Smoothed out in their minds. I’m not that bad. And they’ll know you were the villain in someone’s story. But it’s not too late to change course. Every day is a new opportunity to get it right. Hopefully, by seeing some of their own darkness through the character, they are inspired to move in a different way.”
If this seems far-fetched, Union assures us that the result she describes can be very real indeed. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen parents be like, ‘Is that what I look like?’ ‘Yeah,’ and they’re like, ‘I don’t want that.’ I don’t want to miss another second of my child’s life,” Union recalled. “It could be grown kids. It could be little kids. You don’t have to keep going just because that’s what you’ve always done. You have the ability to change.”
Watch PRIDE’s full interview with Elegance Bratton, Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union below.
But it’s not just these two leads that make the film powerful: it also has an incredible supporting cast. Raul Castillo (Rosales), Eman Esfandi (Ismail) and Aaron Dominguez (Castro) round out the cast with stunning and heartbreaking performances.
“It was really, really intimate and personal,” Esfandi tells PRIDE about playing Ismail. “It was also kind of a deep dive. It was kind of accessing parts of myself through my childhood and being in the Middle East and being raised in America [after 911, which happened] while I [was] a child – and then growing up with the consequences of that. It was a truly cathartic experience. And it’s a very, very healing experience.
Courtesy of A24
Although Esfandi himself is not Muslim, he worked with experts and the director to try to fully understand why his character would choose this time to join the army. What he discovers is how much his character has in common with Ellis, especially this desperate desire for acceptance through assimilation.
“It really comes from this idea, which is so similar to Elegance, in the sense of not really understanding your own worth or loving yourself and doing whatever it takes to assimilate, to find, to find validation from the world outside of you,” he explained. “Specifically for Ismail to fit into a country he was born in but doesn’t identify as.”
You can see PRIDE’s full interview with Raul Castillo, Eman Esfandi and Aaron Dominguez below.
For Dominguez, the key to Castro’s revival was finding the common humanity between them, even when it was challenging. “I often thought, how would I respond, especially at a time like this, to the cards that were dealt to me? [How high] would the bets [have to] for me?” he tells PRIDE. Dominguez adds that in some ways his character also mirrors that of Ellis and Ismael, as he searches for a place to fit in. In his case, that means sticking to the culture of the military.
Courtesy of A24
“There are often moments in the film where Castro is not the initiator, but he definitely … buys into the culture, especially in the hierarchy and the military — especially during that time in the mid-2000s,” Dominguez says. “Yes, it was very… it was challenging for me. But I definitely see the humanism around it, because again, I was often just dealing with the question, “what would I do?”
The truth is, there are no simple answers. This complexity is just another way The inspection shines
The inspection is now available to rent on VOD.
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