The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete

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You have to love movies where the title doesn’t give away the narrative. That is not meant to be a sarcastic comment, honestly. It is better when the title makes sense once the movie has concluded. No film does that better than George Tillman Jr. and Michael Starburry’s, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete. This film tells the story of two young boys, Mister and Pete, who are fighting to survive poverty in the Brooklyn projects. Although the story line only elapses over a three-month period, these two boys grow immensely, and you as the audience grow too. They cannot be older than ten or twelve but over the course of the whole movie we see these two fend for themselves and make decision no pre-teen should ever have to.

Mister is the leader of the pair, as his name implies, and he is willing to do anything to keep the two out of the hands of child services. He is determined to help his drugged addicted mother and has a strong moral compass to guide him. Pete is younger and clearly looks up to Mister. Although the two start as neighbors in an apartment building, they quickly develop a brotherly relationship. You will immediately be pulled into their connection and will be cheering for them with every struggle they encounter.

What makes this film truly unique is that regardless of your age, you can connect with Mister and Pete. You feel their struggle. The movie is filmed in a way to make you relate to each and every situation through their own eyes. The film uses low camera angles to portray the world as if you were four feet tall. The narrative is positioned in a way that makes you feel as if you are young again, and your innocence is being corrupted just as Mister and Pete’s. Simple things like making breakfast or getting clean are not as simple as you believe them to be.

The setting of the narrative further emphasizes the child perspective of the film. Mister and Pete don’t know anything about the world beyond their neighborhood. Strangers stand out. Police aren’t heros. With such limited resources it is easy to feel as if the world does not expand beyond the poverty stricken neighborhood. This only amplifies their struggle. Social mobility is near impossible. Mister and Pete and stuck in the projects and are constantly encounter new battles to survive.

Don’t let this review give off a false portrayal. This film is not sensationalized. It is not a simple Hollywood drama. What you feel for these characters is not a sense of pity but rather a shock that events such as these occur. It seems almost too real, and that’s because it is. Starburry, the writer, pulls from his childhood experiences to create every situation as real as it once was. This film is rugged and unrefined.  It is sure pull at your heartstrings and pinch a few nerves. It exposes new realities of poverty by putting a child’s perspective to the issue that will surely change the way you see social disparities and poverty within the US.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2113075/

327 thoughts on “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete”

  1. The movie, and your review of it, sounds like a great evocation of how malleable the pubescent human is. It sounds like the cinematography of the film placed the viewer right back into that confusing time that we can all relate to, doing an effective job of creating empathy for the main characters and their troubles.

    Corrupted innocence is an incredibly interesting reoccurring theme in cinema. I think it is a theme that everyone can relate to, as everyone can probably remember the moments that, in one way or another, corrupted their innocence. I love the idea that the film is unrefined. Any sensationalism would give this theme a huge aura of falseness and fakeness, but it sounds like Starburry effectively pulled off getting the viewer back into that vulnerable, real, and raw experience of growing up.

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