The Hate U Give

As an African-American, Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg – Hunger Games) negotiates two worlds. Garden Heights is a community of “her people”, and her family. Her father was a Black Panther and is keen to impress upon Starr black pride and resistance to institutionalised racism. However, Williamson Academy is another world – white faces and blue blazers. Though her friends might ape black culture and be seen as cool, Starr knows that if she does the same, she’ll be “ghetto”, and so, she’s a softer and less confrontational version of herself.

One night, while in a car with her friend, Khalil (Algee Smith - Detroit), they’re pulled over by a white cop for no reason. Thinking he has a gun, the cop shoots, and Starr is unable to do anything but watch her first crush bleed to death. The cops are too busy making a case against Khalil to care what really happened, and while she's still trying to make sense of all this, she’s urged to speak out about her experience by a local lawyer and activist. Though, to complicate matters, gangsters that are friends of her father are dead set against this since Khalil dealt for them, and this may expose some of their ‘business’...

In this hard-hitting adaptation of the best-seller by Angie Thomas, the cast is strong all-round, though Stenberg delivers a really powerful performance as Starr, who is both vulnerable yet defiant.

Gail Marshall