Emilio Estevez wrote, directed and served as a producer on the film; he is also its star. Inspired by an essay that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 2007, the movie isn’t the actor-filmmaker’s first brush with earnest Americana. (His ensemble piece “Bobby” (2006) tried to capture the optimism at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968 as admirers of Robert F. Kennedy awaited his arrival.) But it may be his most substantive.
At what other physical institution can you learn about virtually any topic? Where else are the homeless welcomed as equals, at least until they are not? (A subplot deals with the fallout from a patron’s eviction for body odor.) And if libraries are microcosms of democracy, what does it mean that they are sometimes closed?
The bulk of the movie takes place inside a public library in Cincinnati as the city braces for a cold snap. Estevez plays Stuart Goodson, a librarian on easy conversational terms with the homeless who camp out there every day. Then one night, during the potentially fatal arctic chill, Jackson (Michael K. Williams) informs Stuart that the city’s shelters are full. He and a large group of other men simply won’t leave.
Estevez does an elegant job with this setup, creating a low-key, uncondescending portrait of lives on the edge. Stuart has his own checkered past, as does the building manager for his apartment (Taylor Schilling), a recovering alcoholic and new romantic interest.
The standoff is when the eye-rolls begin. Alec Baldwin is brought in as a police negotiator, who, incidentally, is looking for his son on the streets. Christian Slater is a prosecutor and mayoral candidate who senses an opportunity — and has already rebuked Stuart after the city faced legal consequences for the body odor episode. Most egregiously, Gabrielle Union plays a TV news reporter determined to portray the protest as a hostage situation. At the film’s nadir, Stuart, on the phone with her during a broadcast, stops making his case and begins quoting from “The Grapes of Wrath.”
Despite having internet and cellphones, the protesters have surprising trouble getting their message out. Yet in other respects, “The Public” seems overly thought through. Even small details — a song selection, the price of pizza — return as crucial plot points later on, often in silly ways that undermine authenticity. So, too, perhaps, does the contrived character of Big George (rapper Che Smith, aka Rhymefest), a gentle giant and a newcomer to the library’s homeless scene who proves crucial to events.
The movie’s literary virtues, in other words, are up for debate. Its sincerity, though, is not.
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Additional Information:
‘The Public’
Rated PG-13 for indecent exposure — to cold weather and otherwise. Running time: 2 hours 2 minutes.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.