This article was sponsored by United Artists Releasing
It took more than 20 years to get the story of Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, to the big screen. Director and co-writer Chinonye Chukwu worked with producers Barbara Broccoli, Whoopi Goldberg, and co-writer Keith Beauchamp to make it happen. But more than anything, it was the cast that brought together this project about one of the most significant deaths—and subsequent fights for justice—in American history.
As Till-Mobley, Danielle Deadwyler expresses tempestuous emotions with extraordinary nuance and grace. The actor is a marvel at playing the various facets of her character, from motherly devotion to agonizing grief to her eventual rise as an early civil rights leader.
The talented supporting players around Deadwyler help bring the film’s story to life. The film begins in Chicago, where Till-Mobley and the 14-year-old Till (Jalyn Hall) are spending time with their other family members (played by screen veterans Goldberg, Frankie Faison, and Sean Patrick Thomas). While visiting his cousins (Diallo Thompson, Tyrik Johnson) and uncle (John Douglas Thompson) in Mississippi, Till is abducted by white supremacists who go on to horrifically torture and kill him.
In the aftermath of this racist hatred, the film refocuses on Till-Mobley. Deadwyler takes painstaking care to evoke her character’s historic fight for justice, from allowing Jet magazine to publish indelible images of her son’s open-casket funeral (“I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby,” she famously said) to her testimony at his murder trial to her delivery of rousing civil rights speeches. Till-Mobley’s efforts still resonate today: The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was signed into Federal law earlier this year.
There’s no doubt Deadwyler’s exemplary acting work will carry the story of Till-Mobley’s bravery even further into history.