In light of the mockery of “Black Trauma Porn” in “American Fiction,” it’s hard to see the Simon Steuri drama “How I Learned to Fly” as anything but that.
A downbeat story of two parentless, soon-to-be homeless siblings struggling to stay alive and together long enough to get a break, it’s a movie with flashes of heart, humanity and magical realism.
But the white director serves that up with bloody domestic violence, racism, dire poverty and entirely too many tropes from the “struggling siblings” grabbag. The most generous interpretation of the film is that it’s a “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” set in Greater, Blacker Los Angeles — glum and grim, with a cloying, imitative edge.
Marcus Scribner is Daniel, a high school senior with barely the time to think about college, which his guidance counselor urges him to pursue. He’s struggling with a job, a stammering, bullied younger brother (Lonnie Chavis) to look out for, remembering the trauma of their lives through voice over reveries.
“Once you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
They loved their on-task mother (Crystal Bush), but she’s gone. They feared their ogre of a father (Method Man). But he’s out of the picture.
So they’re soldiering on, trying to keep up with school, an after school job washing dishes, and appearances by hiding from debt collectors, social workers and their sympathetic neighbor (Cedric the Entertainer), who asks questions until he stops because he’s guessed the answers.
Daniel props them up with purloined leftovers from the restaurant and the long list of commandments from Mom’s creed, amended by Daniel, which they’ve written on the ceiling of their bedroom.
“We wash our clothes…We pay our bills on time. We don’t drink. We don’t lie. We talk to each other.”
But for all that, they are doomed to a downward spiral. Fourteen year-old Eli is troubled, haunted by their father’s lingering taunts, a kid smart enough to resesarch car repair on Youtube, but a born victim Daniel isn’t able to keep out of harm’s way. And Daniel’s work and assorted cover stories aren’t keeping the wolves at bay.
The script has hints of that tin-eared “writerly” quality that some movies possess if their writer-director (Simon Steuri) hasn’t spent enough time listening to and transcribing real people speaking.
“Virtue never dwells alone,” neighbor Louis (Cedric) quotes, “It always has a neighbor.”
A cop checks on them after they’ve lost the house and live in a car.
“By no means are you in trouble,” he says, in a way no police officer ever has.
The performances are affecting, with Michele Selene Ang making a great impression as a sympathetic laundromat owner, Method Man at his most menacing and Cedric getting across arms-length concern for what’s going on next door and the simple decency in in his character’s response to it.
The dreamy, downbeat tone is engaging even when the story takes us exactly where we expect it to. “How I Learned to Fly” is undeniably sympathetic, thanks to its underdog story and the good people who intervene in it. It just isn’t an original, surprising or moving take on Black trauma, and another example of the narrow selection of Black stories filmmakers are addicted to, like porn.
Rating: unrated, violence, alcohol abuse, sexual situations, profanity
Cast: Marcus Scribner, Lonnie Chavis, Cedric the Entertainer, Michelle Selene Ang and Method Man.
Credits: Scripted and directed by Simon Steuri. A Film Movement release on Film Movement+.
Running time: 1:42
