Before Vice President Kamala Harris forged her historic path to the White House, there was Shirley Chisholm. Before Congresswoman Maxine Waters reclaimed her time, there was Shirley Chisholm. Before Jesse Jackson kept hope alive with his 1988 presidential campaign and President Barack Obama’s election 20 years later epitomized it, there was Shirley Chisholm.
Few people in our nation’s history match the far-reaching impact of Chisholm’s legacy. A piece of that legacy gets the feature film treatment in Shirley, starring Oscar winner Regina King as the pioneering political activist.
Plotwise, Shirley follows the trend of more recent biopics in focusing on a specific time in its subject’s life instead of their journey from the cradle to the grave. Writer-director John Ridley, who won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, crafts and helms a story focused solely on Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign.
He doesn’t add anything new or genre-changing. He simply sticks to the story's facts in that area of her life, and that’s more than enough here because of how he does it. Ridley doesn’t make any reaches for dramatic flair with dialogue or contrived scenes intended to move you.
Instead, those things come organically as his script takes you through the birth, running, and end of the campaign step by step with details that place you on the Chisholm campaign team. It doesn’t have the “umph” one would expect, but it’s enough to ensure you’re engaged.
Alternatively, the power and punch Shirley packs come from the performances of King and the late Lance Reddick. King’s turn as Chisholm doesn’t rank among the best in a career that’s seen its share of excellence – it is the best.
She plays Chisholm with a fierceness that illustrates the assertive, strong-willed intellectual giant many described the former congresswoman as being. Yet, King has a calm that humanizes Chisholm in ways that allow her to be flawed at points but also relatable in battling obstacles in her path. It’s too early to call an Oscar nomination for King’s work here, but it would be a complete surprise if she didn’t garner a Golden Globe nomination.
Reddick, in one of his final roles, also reaches a career hallmark. His portrayal of Chisholm advisor Wesley Mac Holder is his most memorable performance since his outstanding run on The Wire. It’s one of the rare times when Reddick is allowed to show his ability to balance his dramatic chops and humor in the same role, and he’s the perfect complement to the more stoic King.
As a whole, Shirley won’t find itself in the pantheons of great biopics. It doesn’t risk or go deep enough into its subject’s life for that to happen. It does just enough to show you who Chisholm is while making the events that etched her into America’s fabric tangible and easy to follow. However, it’s King’s revelatory performance where it feels like the hero truly gets her flowers and, in the process, takes Shirley from ho-hum to must-see status.