Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Writer/director: Andrew Heckler, Rialto Distribution.
Cast: Forest Whitaker, Garrett Hedlund, Andrea Riseborough, Tom Wilkinson.
Based on a true story, Burden has a storyline that’s not a tough sell: a Ku Klux Klan member discovers the error of his ways.
The film stars Oscar-winner Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) as Reverend Kennedy, who takes in a reformed KKK member. The idealistic Reverend strives to keep the peace, resolving to do everything in his power to prevent long-simmering racial tensions from boiling over. However, members of Kennedy’s congregation are shocked to discover that his plan includes sheltering Burden whose relationships with both a single mother (Riseborough) and a high-school friend (Usher Raymond) force him to re-examine his long-held beliefs.
Hedlund stars as a stressed Klan member in this heavy-handed yet worthwhile true-life salvation drama. In the title role, he astonishes in a nuanced portrait of a man resistant to change, until he falls in love, and finally comes to understand that hatred is literally killing him. Burden is a young man in a small South Carolina town in the 1990s who has been raised in a culture of hate by a leader of the KKK named Tom Griffin (Wilkinson, Michael Clayton), who delivers an intense portrayal of how much evil can look like the average guy next door.
This dramatic true story of empathy and grace in the American south is a timely one, of course. It’s also a universal one that delivers a necessary message without dodging the realities of severing ties from a lifetime of malevolent propaganda.
Poignant but inspirational, the movie won the Audience Award at Sundance in January 2018.
Burden is available to rent via Foxtel store until 4 July 2020.
