A smart and surprising look at race relations on campus - Dear White People

Justin Simiens's 2014 Dear White People is an under-the-radar and surprisingly good film about race relations in a fictional Ivy League college - a rare movie, I think, in that it takes on various issues of race - including cross-race and cross-gender relationships - honestly, credibly, and without being overly polemical or doctrinaire. Essentially, we follow four students at the school through some conflicts and controversy and some battles of racial and campus politics: a popular biracial female student who's an angry provocateur who airs the eponymous campus radio broadcast, a black gay underclassman with few friends who wants to write for the campus radical newspaper, a handsome black upperclassman leader in campus politics, and a glam black woman who challenges the black radicals and who hopes to be part of a reality show filming on campus. All of the students are very intelligent, and there's a strong cast of supporting characters as well. The film builds to a big climax as the mostly white snootiest social club on campus throws party in which all are encouraged to celebrate their inner negro, or words to that effect - a highly offensive venture that leads to quite a bit of chaos and repercussions - but where the film really excels is that it's not in the least preachy or one-sided, the black students bear a strange complicity in setting up this party, and the characters are continually pushing one another, arguing, working things out (or not), forming new relationships - as students will and do. The argument in the dining hall about separatism - should the black students be allowed to have and run their own housing? or should all the housing be open to all? - is a great, powerful scene. The movie's by no means flawless - way too much info presented early on, some through campy use of intertitles that make the movie look too comical at first; the sub-plot involving the college president and dean of students, who just happen to be the dads of some of the students, is quite heavy-handed, improbable, and unnecessary. But overall a smart film that's both entertaining and thoughtful.