‘Shirley’ (2024) Netflix Movie Review - John Ridley’s Shallow Biopic

The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody recently wrote an article titled "The Best Bio-Pics Ever Made," in which he gives us a list of, well, the best biopics ever made. Something he wrote in that piece caught my attention, and it can very well be applied to this biopic directed by John Ridley - "Perhaps the hardest thing about making bio-pics, at least ones regarding figures of actual greatness, is the inability of most directors to consider such heroes face to face, to share in the grandeur or the enormity of these protagonists' inner lives."

In Shirley, Ridley fails to get into the mind of Shirley Chisholm. Like a mediocre director, he simply presents external behaviors to us. We know Shirley (Regina King) is daring, impatient, and outspoken because she argues with the speaker when assigned to the Agricultural Committee. Where is this confidence coming from? Her sister, Muriel St. Hill (Reina King), mentions that their dad used to treat Shirley differently. Why did he give special priority to her? Why was he unable to make his other three daughters "believe in themselves?" Like this father of the year (for Shirley, of course), the movie, too, brushes aside the other three girls. We only hear from one of them (Muriel).

Ridley doesn't deal with Shirley's personal life because he never sees her as a human. She is regarded as a messiah who sees too much suffering and expresses distress over the fact that the other politicians don't care about all the hardships. This righteous, deeply religious figure who goes to a hospital to visit a "stone-cold racist" to fulfill her Christian duties might as well be Jesus in disguise. Ridley is in awe of his protagonist. He puts her on an angelic pedestal. She is either seen as a savior or a source of sentimentality. After an assassination attempt, we see Shirley's shaky hands, which is as far as the movie goes to show us that she is processing this incident. Those shaky hands are nothing but embellishments that substitute inner feelings.

King's performance is filled with histrionics, putting her on the same level of superficiality as this film. She shakes her head, moves her eyes, swings her hands forcefully, and dispenses her lines with a calculated dramatic intensity, giving rise to the kind of acting the Academy recognizes as award-worthy. Neither King nor Ridley communicates anything substantial regarding Chisholm's life. I am tired of saying this about biopics, but Chisholm's Wikipedia page is actually more enticing than anything the movie shows to the audience.

The world of Shirley, the film, is overstuffed with characters who are all treated without curiosity. As a single mother, Barbara (Christina Jackson) initially hesitates to work with Shirley. However, her troubles (as well as her baby) are not displayed on the screen, which renders her remarks insubstantial, and phony. Muriel's transition from being annoyed to being supportive happens off-screen, further accentuating how flimsy Ridley's drama is. A character describes a meeting between two people as "thunder and lightning," but the scene itself feels as exciting as watching paint dry. Mac (Lance Reddick) recounts an old incident involving Shirley, and you think how better it would have been if the film had actually shown us this event instead of handing it out in words, like a pamphlet, so blandly. The things the movie shows us turn out to be far from engaging. I suspect even Chisholm would have spoken against the filmmakers for making such an unchallenging, unstimulating film.

Final Score- [3.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times