The American Society of Magical Negroes

The general idea of The American Society of Magical Negroes is solid: what if the Magical Negro wasn’t just a movie trope, but an actual secret society of Black people granted magical powers to further white people’s comfort and lives, in an effort to protect their own? Don’t think too hard about the logistics: instead, focus on what it would mean from a societal standpoint. What would it do to those serving this role? What would it say about society as a whole? What kinds of conflicts could arise? Why would anyone agree to this? The more questions you come up with, the more you begin to understand what writer/director Kobi Libii wanted to explore, to interrogate, to deconstruct. We have all sorts of metanarrative films, and films which address race in the United States, and even scenes or characters in larger stories to point out how damaging racial stereotypes and tropes in media are. But a whole movie with the stated goal of focusing on a single particularly persistent one? Sure, sounds great!

Unfortunately, Libii falls into a very common trap for first-time directors: the kitchen sink movie. It feels like he’s worried he’ll never get to tell another story, and so shoves all his ideas into this one, leading to a mess that can’t quite figure out what to say or how to say it.

Tonally, this script is incredibly uneven and confused. The overall aesthetic and structure of the society is clearly aping Harry Potter, so the whole thing comes off as a chintzy YA adaptation, despite being an original screenplay. It’s fundamentally a comedy-flavored satire, but has a hard time finding anywhere to be daring with its jokes. They’re almost exclusively very safe, cookie cutter, obvious comments that you’ve heard before. The satire is fairly straightforward and doesn’t get beyond “Imagine if you had to perform like this in order to stay alive. That’s what it’s like being Black in America.” Which okay, there’s a segment of the population who needs to hear that, fair enough (although I doubt they’d watch this movie). But apart from a pretty impactful monologue near the end, all it has to say has been dispensed by the end of the first act.

Additionally, it leans hard into cringe comedy, owing primarily to our protagonist Aren (Justice Smith) being a weak-willed loser with no confidence or self-worth. So instead of compelling or interesting or bringing us along for the ride, he’s just frustrating and bland. And it doesn’t get any better when he starts working at a tech startup, nor when he meets the client assigned to him by the Society, Jason (Drew Tarver). Their mutual co-worker (and mutual love interest) Lizzie (An Li Bogan) is allowed to not be a complete mess, but her inability to be direct leads to more eye-rolling moments. And when the trio gets together, it’s wall to wall obnoxious.

Some of that is down to comedic taste, of course. But what made it especially frustrating was how often the comedy undercut the more poignant statements it tried to land. Whether by Jason’s actions putting too fine a point on what Aren or Lizzie just said, or by simply distracting from it and refusing to let the meaningful observation stand on its own, something about the execution felt like it could never stop moving. This dynamic is captured perfectly in the climax, which features characters literally talking over Aren as he tries to finally explain his feelings to Jason, to actually center himself for once. Granted, that’s partially the point, that despite all the overtures towards being inclusive and diverse, company leadership sees Aren as a statistic, not a person, and don’t really care about him. But in the moment, it gets lost in the chaotic attempt at comedy.

What finally does work, for more or less the first time in the film, is in that same sequence when Aren is able to get everyone else to shut up for a minute. It’s also the first idea we’ve encountered which wasn’t ripped straight off Twitter, making it hit all that much harder. And Justice Smith nails it, which honestly surprised me after he clearly struggled to carry the bulk of the A-plot on his own. This is what I wish the movie had been! A darker, more intense, much sharper indictment of how the system silently forces everyone into these archetypes which damages us all, none more than those forced to carry the emotional burden.

What of the Society itself, which I’ve basically ignored thus far? We spend too little time with them for much to stick. We see him in an intro class, to which we even flashback a few times to milk it for specific teachings from Gabbard (Aisha Hinds). Head of the Society DeDe (Nicole Byer) calls everyone together a few times. There are a couple magical gadgets to remind us it exists when Aren is on assignment. And that’s about it. Even when Roger (David Alan Grier) is mentoring him, almost all of it takes place out in the real world, be it walking around the street or trying to game a middle aged honky cop into a cool club. This is because the Society isn’t meant to be understood: it’s just a plot device. One whose most important aspect is the threat that if anyone uses their power selfishly, they get excommunicated, and everyone loses their magic. So because Jason has a crush on Lizzie, and Aren’s job is to support Jason, he can’t act on the chemistry they obviously share.

The more I try to explain what’s bad about it, the more I twist myself in knots to explain the scattered bits of its lore that barely tie everything together. While the overall idea of the movie is high concept, the actual execution very quickly starts accumulating convolutions as it barrels towards mediocrity. It quickly moves to recognizable structures and tropes and archetypes, sanding all the edges off and making it a far more palatable movie than it really should be. Movies confronting forms of systemic racism should make you uncomfortable in various ways, especially if you’re a white man (like me). It should force you to look inside yourself, to evaluate what (if anything) you can do to better be part of the solution. But at the end of the day, I just felt bored. This is a movie which will only be seen by people who agree with and understand its perspective, and it has nothing to offer that crowd. Marking it as a movie for no one.