So when are we giving Rashaad Ernesto Green and the cast of Premature (2019) an Academy Award?
Premature is one of those films that just does everything so right. You feel every emotion. You see the ups and downs of love. It pushes a black feminist agenda. It shows the real side to abortion as opposed to the conservative message that women get abortions as a form of contraception. It shows black people being so unapologetically black; being writers, being kids, laying their edges, going to parties. Premature is definitely a film that has been swept away but deserves all the publicity this world has to offer.
Not only does Rashaad Ernesto Green have a beautifully unique film style, it flawlessly compliments how the story is told. With subtle aspects of a documentary-style filming at certain moments where you feel so enmeshed with the characters' stories that you truly feel as if you are just following them through life.
Zora Howard playing Ayanna was a performance for the ages. She was putting me through it. I laughed and cried (mostly cried) with her portrayal of a 17-year-old black girl from New York who had been dealt some of the worst but also some of the best cards. The contrast of the immediate perception you get of Ayanna when the film begins and who she really is at her core was so well done. It was a perfect reflection of how judging ones first encounter doesn’t mean you know a person. Her storyline continues in such a similar way, you never really know what she’s going to say or how she will react but every time, you see her justification. You see the pain behind her actions. Not many would be able to pull off that role with such authenticity and Zora Howard deserves a lot more credit for it.
The film is essentially a love story but its ability to home in on such important topics, more than once, is remarkable. “You think you got it harder or something? You don't think we get it, too? We get it worse. We get killed just like you” — a line in the script that follows Isaiah (a young black man) arguing that black men have it tougher than black women. As Malcolm X said, the most neglected person in America is the black woman and the way Zora Howard and Rashaad Ernesto Green wrote this script to encapsulate just that, should set the precedent for Hollywood. Black women are tired of always seeing the stories and focus be on black men. Black women suffer too, if not worse. This films ability to highlight the severity of how ignorant people can be to the suffering of black women is needed, especially in the current political climate.
Watch this film. Watch it again. Make everyone you know watch it. It is so so so worthy of your time.
