The central question of “Devotion,” a film by J.D. Dillard, is how we define an activist. Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors), a trailblazing Black navy pilot and Korean War hero, is the focus of Dillard’s newest film.
Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice, which is an adaptation of Adam Makos’ book of the same name. However, Brown is not your standard activist, and “Devotion” is not your typical anti-racism movie.
The film subverts previous depictions of Black people and white people during segregation, such as “Green Book,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” and “The Defiant Ones, which are rife with stereotypes and filled with magical Negros who have the power to end racism if only their white counterpart could see their humanity. It also deals with the friendship formed by Brown and white wingman Tom Hudner (Glen Powell, the film’s executive producer).
Of course, these movies other the person they pretend to care for while presenting the prejudiced white person as a hero. With ease, “Devotion” balances conflict and concord, difficult lessons and valiant victories, and wholehearted allegiance and pointless white guilt.
Hudner’s arrival at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida, signals the start of Dillard’s movie in 1948. He walks into a loud, angry men’s restroom filled with expletives. These offensive remarks are not coming from a mob. They’re coming from Brown, one individual. Brown yells at himself, but Hudner never notices since the tears this Black man sheds aren’t for Hudner (though Dillard and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt do show us those tears through an arresting fourth-wall-breaking mirror shot).
The quiet, solitary, no-nonsense Brown throws a different shadow than the serene, innocent, all-American Hudner. They shouldn’t be close friends because of their temperaments. Additionally, “Devotionscreenwriters “Jake Crane and Jonathan Stewart don’t try to force the matter, giving it an exceptional amount of freedom. Instead of a fantasy misinterpretation of the setting and period, this exhilarating, heart-pounding adventure is more focused on the two guys coming together out of mutual respect.
Brown is a pilot with numerous hidden wounds; the slurs he yells at himself come from a small book where he records every insult ever directed at him. Brown, one of the first African Americans to fly for the Navy, was attacked physically and had many attempts made on his life early in his career by his segregationist “comrades.” The violence that Brown experienced is not visible.
Dillard is too intelligent to pursue such easy pickings. Instead, Major’s skillful physical portrayal, a tight bundle of a swaggering gait belying the weight on his broad shoulders and stress wrapped around his face, allows us to experience the effects on Brown’s mental state.
“Devotion” shows Hudner’s slow approach toward comprehending Brown without trivializing this self-assured pilot. We meet Brown’s daughter Pamela and his loving wife Daisy while Brown, in turn, draws Hudner steadily into his orbit (Christina Jackson). Dillard contrasts Brown’s home life, where he can escape prejudice and pressures, and where his whole body and face lighten with happiness, with the challenging situation of being the lone Black guy among a sea of white navy aviators.
As Daisy, Jackson is a breath of fresh air, injecting the scene with much-needed grace and fun. More than desegregation or the war, Daisy and Jesse’s relationship gives the picture a physical heartbeat in many ways.
But there is conflict: Brown and Hudner are sent to a carrier headed for the Mediterranean Sea due to the Korean War with their squadron. The F4U Corsair, an aircraft that bothers Brown, is used for the pilots’ training before deployment. Although Brown argues that the issues can be too technical for a general audience goer (though I’m sure aviation aficionados would appreciate these specifics), the drilling on these planes does get a little repetitious.
In “Devotion,” the aerial dogfights are exhilarating. Although many people may immediately draw comparisons between “Devotion” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” neither film compares to the other. The boom from within the cockpit thrills, Messerschmidt’s “Mank” cinematography firmly places us in the scope of the battles, and Billy Fox’s “Dolemite is My Name” editing is expertly strung to thrilling conclusions.
Brown continues his struggle against racism in the air, where the pilot experiences the greatest freedom, according to Dillard. Hudner does not appear to be using physical violence against Black people in this image to advance their civil rights or to make them feel more human. Brown’s protest is his very existence.
His sit-in is on the plane. “Devotion,” a two-and-a-half-hour movie that passes by instantly, is Dillard’s graduation from his small-scale genre film to a glorious onslaught. Without resorting to maudlin or craven methods, Dillard successfully strikes a balance between the various issues raised by anti-racism films and the bravery of Brown. Even at its agonizing conclusion, “Devotion” lands flawlessly.