The Public (2018)

July 6, 2019 12:55 PM

An act of civil disobedience turns into a standoff with police when homeless people in Cincinnati take over the public library to seek shelter from the bitter cold.
posted by ellieBOA (4 comments total)

I really enjoyed this but I also saw it with the most sympathetic audience possible: a special screening at the American Library Association Midwinter meeting (with Emilio Estevez and Jena Malone there to discuss it afterwards). That experience did help to kind of let me gloss over the clunkier parts of the movie while watcing it. But it definitely has its flaws.
posted by acidnova at 2:39 PM on July 6, 2019

I really enjoyed this as well. It was the first real bit of Brechtian style drama I'd seen in the movie theater. And as soon as I realized that's where it was going, I was delighted.
posted by Harry Caul at 4:45 PM on July 6, 2019

I brought my 16 year old foster son to a screening in Toronto. He is a blue-collar Doug Ford fan - and he walked out of the movie saying he wanted to be a librarian. It warmed the cockles of my heart. Of course I have problems with the film depicting a female-dominated profession almost exclusively through a male narrative, but seeing Omar on screen again was amazing - HE is an amazing actor.
posted by saucysault at 6:39 PM on July 6, 2019 [5 favorites]

Can't wait to see it myself - interview with Estevez on CBC where he talked about how his parents used to drop him off at the library when he was young ... Libraries (public and school) were my "safe space" growing up, quiet, calm, cool with tons of amazing books. Every time we moved, the first thing I would do, would be to get myself a new library card.
posted by jkaczor at 5:50 AM on July 8, 2019