THE STORY – Haunted by his crumbling marriage and an identity crisis, a successful but troubled businessman gets drawn into a psychological game of cat and mouse with a sinister, mysterious woman whom he encounters on a New York subway.
THE CAST – André Holland, Kate Mara, Zazie Beetz, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Aldis Hodge & Lauren E. Banks
THE TEAM – Andre Gaines (Director/Writer) & Qasim Basir (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 88 Minutes
Controversial writer Amiri Baraka’s play “Dutchman” first opened in New York in 1964. It’s an incendiary one-act featuring two characters—Clay, a young Black man, and Lula, a broadly idiosyncratic white woman—as they take a life-altering ride on the subway. A startling, semi-abstract examination of interracial interactions, it was quickly made into a shocking film by then-first-time director Anthony Harvey (best known today for “The Lion in Winter”). It’s one of the more provocative socially conscious dramas of its time, encapsulating a wide range of themes within its brief runtime, such as how American society often goes out of its way to excuse inexcusable behavior by white people while not affording Black people the same level of understanding.
The play and film are very much products of their time in terms of style, though they remain effective today. Now, another filmmaker has brought Baraka’s play to the screen, albeit with a totally different approach. André Gaines’ “The Dutchman“ takes the source material and completely remixes and restructures it, aiming to bring it into the 21st century. This meta-adaptation takes on a completely different strategy than Harvey’s film, which is a practically identical stage-to-screen adaptation. Gaines takes the stage script and reinterprets it, bringing it into the present day to examine the material from a new angle. Unfortunately, this bold adaptive choice makes very little sense.
Here, Clay (André Holland) is a successful man navigating a difficult time with his partner, Kaya (Zazie Beetz). They’ve started attending couples therapy after Kaya is unfaithful (she contends that it was more of a misunderstanding than a true betrayal of their relationship). Still, Clay isn’t happy with the way their talks have been going. After a particularly frustrating session, their therapist, Dr. Amiri (the always excellent Stephen McKinley Henderson), offers Clay something he hopes will help. No, it’s not a prescription; it’s the script of the play “Dutchman.“ Dr. Amiri tells Clay that Baraka’s words may offer some guidance. Clay is reasonably skeptical. Later, when he takes the subway to an important party, he meets a woman named Lula (Kate Mara) whose behavior mirrors that of the character in the play that shares her name. The two quickly connect, and it’s not long before they’re flirting to a degree approaching danger. What seems like a fleeting interaction between two strangers shifts into something else, and much more threatening.
Once the main pair make their public transit-based acquaintance, the film finally begins to resemble Baraka’s original play, both in its dialogue and its action. The film then diverges from its source material by having Clay and Lula get off the subway after their initial conversation, unlike in the single-location play. From then on, Baraka’s words and the screenplay by Gaines and Qasim Basir merge and split frequently, like two trains on closely parallel but different tracks. This authorial dance is compelling, with the sporadic instances taken directly from the play melding with the new screenplay with ease. Although this screenplay has a habit of making its characters deliver some clangingly obvious, even cheesy lines, in a way that calls attention to the overwritten nature of the script. Still, it’s doubtful that those unfamiliar with the play would even notice the difference between the original and the new text.
Therein lies one of the film’s biggest problems. While the play is a staple of college theatre programs across the country, it’s far from widely known. This film treats “Dutchman“ in the way that Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet“ does with “Hamlet,“ with a strong degree of shorthand familiarity that would likely mystify most audiences. There are some moments where the film offers a brief explanatory context. Still, its structure relies on an understanding of the original play in how it plays with the melding of in-universe fiction and reality. Suffice to say, a refresher on both the play and the previous cinematic adaptation is needed before watching Gaines’ film (this one even occasionally uses footage from Harvey’s original).
Even if one has an understanding of the original play, the abstract, free-floating nature of this film, with little grounding in the way of internal logic, is frequently baffling. The film makes its nature of unreality known early on, when Dr. Amiri’s presentation of the play to Clay seems to disrupt the rules of time for the younger man. But even in the magical reality of “The Dutchman,“ the character of Lula and what happens around and because of her are so far removed from typical sense that it’s confounding. In the original play, Lula’s erratic and troubling actions and ways serve a thematic purpose. It shows just how much leeway white people are given by their fellow citizens to commit wrongdoings, even when they’re clearly so far removed from common sense and typical behavior. Here, Mara’s Lula has a penchant for similarly misanthropic and downright bigoted actions and words, which prompts all who meet her to express appropriate shock. The only times she’s treated with anything better than apprehension are when she repeatedly fakes having been negatively impacted by Clay in public (she loves to scream and wait for bystanders to immediately assume Clay has attacked her or stolen from her).
Holland does his very best to give humanity to his character. He plays Clay as alternately haunted and passionate when pushed to the edge, finding variety in the many frustrating, repetitive moments in which his character finds himself. And Mara leans into Lula’s unpredictability while also remaining believably grounded (for the most part). She avoids going over the top, a tendency that might be some actors’ first instinct upon reading the script, and thus she finds different levels to her character’s mania.
Gaines has crafted a handsome film. The slick cinematography effectively captures the feeling of a long night in New York City, following its characters at a steady pace. And Daniel Hart’s sweeping score brings a sense of grandeur to the film. In one moment, as Clay enters an ornate, intimidating theater, the music evokes the opening track of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,“ lending the scene a sense of effective menace.
By the time the film reaches its confounding final act, it’s also unclear what exactly Dr. Amiri, and thus, the film itself, wants Clay to learn from his experience with Lula. Is it meant to help him to appreciate Kaya, flaws and all, because the other romantic options out there in the world may not be so right for him? That’s the most charitable read on this bizarre film, and that’s obviously much less of an impactful one than can be derived from Baraka’s original play. The stage drama packs layers of dense thematic meaning into its short runtime (this film is about a half hour longer than Harvey’s hour-long film), whereas “The Dutchman“ passes through understanding, logic, and even abstract reasoning like an express train bound for its final stop.
