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Till review – a powerful portrait of courage in the face of barbaric racism

Director Chinonye Chukwu tells the story of Emmett Till, the black 14-year-old tortured and lynched in 1955 Mississippi for supposedly whistling at a white woman, and his mother Mamie Till’s fight for justice

A sick feeling of dread propels Chinonye Chukwu’s powerful movie: dread at the racist violence about to happen, dread at the racist violence that is then threatened against those standing up against it. This film is about Emmett Till, the black 14-year-old tortured and lynched in 1955 Mississippi for supposedly whistling at a white woman, whose testimony at the subsequent murder trial was disputed. (The closing credits icily remind us that this woman is still alive.) It is also about the boy’s mother Mamie Till, and her courageous campaign for justice, which began with a laceratingly painful decision to have an open casket at her son’s funeral to show everyone the shocking truth.

Danielle Deadwyler plays Mamie Till, a calm, determined professional woman and single parent; Whoopi Goldberg has a cameo as her mother, Alma. Jalyn Hall plays Emmett as a smart, extrovert kid with an irrepressible puppyish enthusiasm: cheeky, but no more cheeky than many other teenagers, and mostly just naive. He is sent from his home town of Chicago to stay with family in Mississippi for the summer, with a stern warning from his mother to be careful around white people.

Some of the film’s purest nausea resides in the trial itself, with the swaggeringly open racism of the court officials and police. Quite clearly, the fact that any trial was possible at all was down to Mamie Till and the NAACP who took up her cause; it was virtually a private prosecution, the terrible burden for this being placed entirely on Mamie Till herself. Chukwu contrives a stunning coup for the scene in which she arrives at the courthouse, surrounded by NAACP officials and is about to make a quiet, dignified statement to reporters, whose attitude is not obviously different from the jeering crowd behind them; what happens next is best not revealed here, but it is a heartstopping lurch of ironised fear, a bathos of horror.

Till is a fierce portrait of courage and a sombre study of the human cost involved in resisting this kind of barbarity.

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Till Reviews

There’s no other reason needed to watch Till than for Deadwyler’s impeccable performance.

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Mar 6, 2024

Deadwyler gives an astounding performance as Mamie in Chinonye Chukwu’s powerful and harrowing film.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2024

Till is an unmissable film and a humanist work par excellence; no one should look away.

Full Review | Nov 24, 2023

Danielle Deadwyler turns in the most emotional & astonishing performance of 2022. My heart is truly speechless from her performance…

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Till is a cut above most historical biopics.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2023

Chukwu and cinematographer Bobby Bukowski can barely bring themselves to peer away from Deadwyler, who stuns in frame after frame.

Full Review | Apr 7, 2023

Told from the perspective of a mother's love, the story of a lynching that galvanised the 1960s civil rights protests has dignity and raw emotive power

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 17, 2023

The screenplay, by the director in collaboration with Michael Reilly and Keith Beauchamp, is filled with rich detail, such as the different ways in which attendees at the trial are treated according to their colour.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 10, 2023

Till distinguishes itself with the intimacy of its approach. As well as possessing a luminous beauty made for close-ups, Deadwyler, displays a deep understanding of Mamie’s grief and her urge to make her son’s memory stand for something.

As a grieving Mamie Till, Danielle Deadwyler takes immersive ownership of a mother’s primal pain.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 9, 2023

It may not be an easy watch, but it’s essential; and, if nothing else, Deadwyler’s performance will floor you to where the story’s personal relevance won’t be of issue.

As well-intentioned as it is, Till becomes consumed with its own self-righteousness as it goes from being a moving drama to a strident, obvious and rather drab polemic...the film gradually loses its grip on what could have been a compelling narrative.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 8, 2023

[The] script doesn’t escape the stiffness common in history lessons, but Deadwyler’s immersion in Mamie’s agony is utterly convincing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 2, 2023

The theme is moving, but the way it's told is hardly brilliant. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Feb 24, 2023

It's as impactful as it is insipid. And that's the worst thing that can happen to a biopic. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 24, 2023

Till is an unflinching critique of the assertion to always “believe women.”

A necessary story, a missed opportunity. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 22, 2023

The focus of this director is on the fight of Mamie Bradley. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 22, 2023

Infused with an incredible performance from Danielle Deadwyler, ‘Till’ takes great care in depicting the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till and his mother’s fight to make the world witness what happened to him.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 21, 2023

It’s a courageous movie that gathers strength as it ages, with the tone producing an eerily horror effect that doesn’t lift for most of the movie. Deadwyler stuns in a role that could have been chewed up. She digs in.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Feb 19, 2023