The Inspection
Poignant autobiographical drama about a black gay man who, in an attempt to give his life meaning, joins the Marines.
At war with his sense of belonging, Ellis French is a sensitive young Black man who enlists in the Marine Corps to pull himself out of homelessness and gain the love of his dogged and combatant mother. While the film takes place in the age of America’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue’ policy, which directed that applicants to the military not be asked about sexual orientation, homophobia is deeply entrenched in all aspects of service, from bootcamp to battle. Once enlisted, Ellis struggles to conceal his sexual identity.
THE INSPECTION is writer-director Elegance Bratton’s retelling of his own incredible story. After being kicked out of his mother’s New Jersey home at the age of sixteen for being gay and subsequently living in housing precarity for a decade, he joined the Marines, where he served as a combat cameraman. Bratton’s powerful fiction debut is a heartfelt love letter to survival and staying true to oneself despite adversity on all fronts. (source: tiff.net)