The selection for Netflix Canada sucks. I know. Here is a brief review of a movie that is worth your while.
Imitation of Life (1959) is about four women, but the one I couldn’t stop thinking about was the black girl who passes as white, Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane’s mother Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) is black, but Sarah Jane doesn’t look black at all, she looks white. When we first meet Annie she says, “we just come from a place where my colour deviled my baby.” They’re homeless, but Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) takes them in to live with her and her daughter, Susie. We’re carried through the story by Lorna’s acting aspirations, but it’s their personalities and relationships we’re really watching. That, and Sarah Jane.
Sarah Jane takes an “if they don’t ask don’t tell” policy about her race. As a child, she cuts her wrist and Susie’s wrist to see if there is a difference in their blood. Annie tries to teach Sarah Jane not to be ashamed of what she is, but Sarah Jane ferociously exclaims she is white. Sarah Jane believes this so fervently I was convinced it was a waste of time to teach her otherwise. But what does that mean for Annie? Allow her daughter to grow up lying to herself and those around her? Live in the shadows in her daughter’s life? Miss out on Sarah Jane’s marriage and children? We watch Annie wrestle with these implications while Sarah Jane grows up and experiences greater and greater abuse and rejection as people around her discover her secret.
Presumably Sarah Jane wants to have the same opportunities as a white woman, but pay attention to the jobs she chooses. Really, she just wants to be accepted.
The film is a bit dramatic, but it’s coloured by themes of motherhood, parenting, career aspirations, and gender roles for these four women. Each of them striving individually for things we all want for ourselves – but as extreme examples – as though only together are they fully functioning individuals. Lora works, Annie mothers, Sarah Jane wants to run from her mother and Susie only wants her mother’s attention. They are four strings being pulled in different directions to untangle a knot.
When it was over, I wanted nothing more than to talk to someone about the ideas and questions I’d had watching it. I opened Twitter and realized no matter how carefully I crafted the tweet, Imitation of Life would be too old for people to talk about. Forgotten. Well it shouldn’t be. Go watch it.
Sean Ewington is your friendly neighbourhood movie/video game critic, and comic author. He is the co-writer of the Up Up Down Down webcomic and owns and operates 2dreviews. Sean has written for various online publications like Broken Frontier and Brutal Gamer, as well as print publications including the Metro - the world's largest free daily newspaper. 