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Netflix’s Shirley Chisholm Biopic Never Matches the Power of Its Subject
The Regina King-starring drama about the first Black woman presidential candidate doesn’t do its subject (or the star who plays her) justice.
These conflicts hover over the film’s depiction of Chisholm’s electoral struggle, though in a noteworthy choice that’s never substantially grappled with, it seems predominantly interested in her clash with Black men, as represented by her campaign manager Stanley Townsend (Brian Stokes Mitchell); Ron Dellums (Dorian Missick), the Californian congressman who supports her run early before switching his allegiance to McGovern; and Walter Fauntroy (André Holland, always fantastic), the politician and civil rights activist who’s also pursuing the presidency. Shirley sometimes gives us scenes where she makes the wrong strategic read, like an early sequence where she declares California to be a “big, shiny object that’ll leave us distracted and defeated,” only for the state to end up being an important target for her campaign. It also carved out some time to illustrate how Chisholm’s political self-belief placed her at odds with her family, whether it’s her husband Conrad (Michael Cherrie), whose needs she often steamrolled over, or her sister Muriel St. Hill, played by Reina King.
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