‘Till’ Looks Like a Stirring Portrait of a Mother’s Quest for Justice—but Some Say They’ve Seen Enough
The first trailer for the upcoming movie Till, based on the lynching of Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley’s quest for justice, has arrived to polarized reception from viewers who say they don’t want to watch another “Black trauma porn” movie.
The trailer is an obvious tearjerker: Based on the still terror-inducing 1955 murder, Till seems to follow the basic contours of the true story. Danielle Deadwyler narrates as Mamie Till, a single mom from Chicago who reluctantly allows her 14-year-old son Emmett (Jalyn Hall) to spend the summer with his cousins “working the fields” in the Mississippi Delta.
“Are you listening? Be small down there,” she cautions her jocular teenager, who tries to lighten the mood by walking around his room with his shoulders slumped.