We do not often speak of people this way, but there are American Saints. These are figures so beloved, so important to our history, that they become semi-divine. They are legends beyond reproach, not real people with petty terrestrial concerns. According to my count, there are six such icons. Four are Presidents: Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, and Reagan. But one stands alone, a man who never took elected office, but still has his own individual Saint Day in January. That man is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the greatest figure of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.
As for the sixth American Saint? Elvis Presley. But he's not in this movie.
One cannot envy the task that "
Selma" has given itself: to make a human portrait of Martin Luther King. Biopics are typically beloved fair of Oscarbait, but they are always tricky movies to make. Few lives add up in total to a single dramatic formula that fits a two hour movie. The worst-structured biopics end up meandering and often boring. For example: the otherwise brilliant "
Mr. Turner". These problems are multiplied infinitely when your figure is an irreproachable member of the modern Pantheon, more sacred than most actual divinities in this country*. "Selma"'s solution is as brilliant as it is simple: do not be a biopic. Focus on a single moment in time and make your figures merely actors in a grand historic play.
"Selma" borrows much of it's structure from "
Lincoln" - be a drama about a single battle in your hero's life, not a drama about his entire life. This film is only about the 1964 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King orchestrated protestors to strike at
the very bastion of White supremacy, forcing the US government to pass
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "Selma" goes somewhat further than "Lincoln". It is not a story about one civil rights leader, but a tale about the entire movement, with MLK merely being the appointed star. King (David Oyelowo), fresh with a Noble Peace Prize, uses the Selma march to convince a relunctant President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) to side with him against Southern tyranny. "Selma" manages to juggle reverence with drama, building a tight, intense, and emotional movie giving a clear, modern picture into one of the most difficult chapters of American history.
The worst reaction for a critic to have to a movie is "meh", when there just is not all that much to say about a movie. My goal here is to get exciting and energized, making great analysis. I should have some kind of strong reaction here or there, good or bad, and then prove my points with a series of convincing rhetorical, humorous asides, and brilliant insights. Instead I feel nothing. I'm numb I'm not sure if I even saw a movie or took novocaine/ 
