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Its the end of the year therefor almost no new content so I keep picking up movies I wanted to watch at some point, most recent The Six Triple Eight, Tyler Perry's latest creation, after watching Masters of The Air and notice all the backlash because of how inaccurate it might be I decided to take this movie for what it is, entertainment production about the only all Black, all female unit to serve overseas during World War II. After watching this movie I was unsure of how Perry handled this important story, the movie swings between powerful moments and somewhat rigid storytelling. It’s not perfect, but it does give credit on these amazing women who served their country during war and discrimination.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7984734/
- Platform: NETFLIX
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That movie goes back to 1945, when the U.S. military had a big problem with millions of unmailed letters and packages stacked up in warehouses in England, it was so bad that it was even affecting troop morale, because they weren't getting mail from their loved ones back home, there was no email or smartphones back then so it takes weeks to get letters with any word. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of 855 Black women took the impossible task of sorting through this mountain of mail and as expected they deliver, sounds easy and basic although it wasn't.
I thought it was really nice that Perry didn't make this some action packed war movie, he focused on the real challenges these women faced at home and their basic training in Georgia, deployment to Birmingham, England, working in cold rat infested warehouses while German bombs were falling from the sky, probably where it gets even better, these women were not just fighting the obvious enemy, they were also fighting racism and sexism within their own military, at the time it was common to happen, same goes for soldiers.
When the movie focuses on the women’s will to show they can do it when everyone expects them to fail, that is where the movie really shines since it serve the purpose to inspire but not going down into feminism messages. They were given six months to clear the mail backlog and they did it in three, and then did the same thing in France. Perry is often too neat and tidy about the way he presents these achievements, as if he’s going through a 'how to make an inspiring movie' manual, very systematic.
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Lena Derriecott, a young woman who joins the Women's Army Corps after her boyfriend Abram dies in the war, that is how the movie starts and from there develops the plot. Under the command of Major Charity Adams, she becomes part of the 6888th, one of hundreds of Black women who take on the massive challenge of fixing the military's broken mail system. We see their training in Georgia dealing with the discrimination and then the reality of working in wartime in Europe where they work in three shifts around the clock processing thousands of pieces of mail every day.
Perry had these women come up with their own system for handling the mail, putting serial numbers and information cards to use, to find the recipients. Sorting letters was not what it was about, it was about solving a complicated puzzle in the middle of air raids, freezing conditions and constant racism, who would actually concentrate under such chaos and pressure.
Kerry Washington is absolutely owning her role as Major Charity Adams in a way that's perfect combination of strength and vulnerability, mainly because she has a great scene in which she stands up to a white officer who tries to tell her unit how to do their job and Washington delivers it with such determination you can’t help but root for her. On the other side of things there is Lena played by Ebony Obsidian, a real emotionally deep women, especially in scenes about her loss, also her growth from a girl from a small town to a capable soldier and she brings real emotional depth indeed in Ebony Obsidian.
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The supporting cast did a great job filling in the blanks because each woman in the unit has her own reason for joining, we get a lot of different stories from escaping abuse, seeking education and these are all reasons that give the story a more grounded feeling. Susan Sarandon and Sam Waterston turn up to make short but impactful appearances as Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt they didn't have much screen time but the script seem to be on her favor as you could really notice them been part of the story, but I want them to have had more screen time although its just too many people, very similar to Masters of The Air.
The movie made me think about how much we take communication for granted these days, technology itself. The idea that millions of letters were just sitting there, undelivered, while soldiers and their families were desperate for news from each other, it was the uncertain if they were dead or alive. Director Tyler Perry does a great job of showing this through Lena’s story, particularly when she learns of Abram’s death and click on how important the 6888th’s mission was, even if some thought of it as a waste of time sorting mail when others were dodging bullets out there.
The ending is so neat in my opinion, lots of emotions towards the end, after months of mail mountains in both England and France and the 6888th finally completes their mission early before schedule, the ending makes you realize they have not only succeeded in their mission but they have changed perceptions of what Black women can do in the military, essentially that they can make things happen, without going into any kind of controversy or argument, someone had to take they job and they went beyond.
The movie has a lot of inaccuracy, I have seen in the past that some think this should not be seen with a lazy eye since its war history, but I think that as long as it not drastic changes that takes glory from others, I think its OK. In the final scene white male soldiers salute the women when they come home, something Director Perry himself has admitted never actually happened. The truth is these women were not celebrated or acknowledged when they returned and many of them did not talk about their service because of ugly rumors that had been spread about them, that must be very sad to feel this way but that was part of the world we humans use to live in, now days we can only appreciate things have change for the better, still it was interesting that Perry ended the movie with that symbolic salute anyway, trying to at least give them recognition from himself and the production. At the end of the movie, footage of the real Lena Derriecott King explains that they were really treated better in Europe than when they came back to the United States.
The movie has its flaws, dialogue that at some times felt like it was not a human talking, almost too scripted or might say predictable? and there were some characters that were under develop but that I can understand since there were a ton of women, but I think Perry provided the necessary dose of attention to an important little piece of history that most people including myself didn’t know about, here is when this type of content work when it sparks that curiosity after the movie or tv series so the viewers goes to the internet and decides to dig deeper about it. There are historical inaccuracies, especially with the timing of things, that I don’t like now, because they could have been avoided with some kind of audit from an expert. The most important aspect of this movie is the core message about these pioneering women who served their country even while fighting prejudice on multiple fronts. I'm giving this a 7 out of 10 because it tells an important story that deserves to be known besides the production never felt cheap and the storytelling is not bad at all. The strong performances from Kerry Washington and Ebony Obsidian help lift up the production quality of the movie, while it might not be the most polished World War II movie ever made, it shines a light on heroes who went unrecognized for far too long, now that is important.
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