MGM has released a new teaser for Till, a forthcoming biopic on the life and death of Till Till, which tells a compelling and heartbreaking tale. When Mamie Till Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler) learns that her teenage son was brutally murdered for being a Black person in the wrong place at the wrong time, she begins to fight for justice. Haley Bennett (The Girl on the Train) and Whoopi Goldberg also appear in the film. Mamie’s beautiful moments with her son Emmett (Jalyn Hall) are contrasted by the darker and joyless sequences that take place following Till’s death seen in the trailer for Till.
Another sign that this film is not aiming to be an “inspiring” tale is that it chronicles the brutal battle of a mother who has no option but to focus her fury on preserving the memory of her son alive so that the tragedy does not occur with other moms. Not that this is news to anybody watching, but it’s never easy witnessing these stories and realising how much grief and misery were pushed on the Black community to the point of being accepted, as the Till trailer also underscores in the 1950s. Chinonye Chukwu, the award-winning director of Clemency and AlaskaLand, is behind Till.
She collaborates on the script with first-time movie screenwriters Michael Reilly and Keith Beauchamp. In an official statement, Chukwu explained why the decision to focus the tale on Emmet Till’s mother was so crucial: After being asked to write and direct a film on Emmett Till, I found myself pulled to a particular character at the core of Till’s sphere of influence. I saw an opportunity to take a different tack and tell the story from Mamie Till Mobley’s point of view as a mother. Without Mamie’s intervention, her son’s recollection would have been lost forever. Future activists and Freedom Fighters may thank her for setting the stage for today’s modern civil rights struggle. To honour Mamie’s memory and place her in the forefront, I felt obligated to write this piece. A theatrical release for Till is planned for October. In terms of a release date, there is no word yet.
Summation of the plot
The actual tale of Mamie Till Mobley’s tireless quest for justice for her 14-year-old son Emmett Till, who was killed in Mississippi in 1955 while visiting his relatives, is told in the very moving and cinematic film Till. During Mamie’s heartbreaking journey from grief to action, we see the universal power of a mother’s capacity to transform the world.