Last week, I went to watch Dope, an incredible film providing insight into just how difficult it can be to rise above the gangs and drugs of a bad neighborhood.

Malcolm and his two friends are 90s geeks with big dreams and a low risk of getting involved in any questionable activities. Still, through no fault of their own, they get stuck with a bag of drugs, and, too afraid to go to the police, are forced to come up with a safe way to get rid of it. They ultimately turn to the internet, setting up an E-shop and selling the drugs bit by bit. As Malcolm becomes increasingly invested in the project, it seems clear to me that it’s going to be yet another movie about kids that gradually cast their aspirations to the wayside in favor of the highly lucrative drug market. What we don’t know, however, is that Malcolm has other things in mind. We discover that, after learning that his Harvard alumni interviewer is secretly a drug lord, Malcolm had created the E-shop not only to dispose of the drugs, but also to leave a trail back to the interviewer, to be used as leverage in the college admissions process. Genius.

What made this movie so great was not just the surprise ending, but the fact that it was kept a secret so well for so long. I was convinced that Malcolm had given up on his dreams, and the sad part about it was that I wasn’t terribly surprised.  We have heard so many stories of  promising individuals succumbing to the temptations of drug culture, that the incredibly pessimistic “bad things happen to good people” stereotype was almost reflexive. I’m sure this is exactly what the director was going for and it made the take-away message all the more triumphant. Against all odds, Malcolm succeeded, and is proof that anything is possible with a little hard work and perseverance.

Truly a beautiful film. Incredibly well-written, and a great satire of America’s racial biases.

Would recommend.