If Richard Linklater’s Boyhood were a cinema verité documentary about a black family in Northern Philadelphia, it would be called Quest. Filmed over a 10-year period from 2006 to 2016, it follows the Raineys. Christopher, the patriarch, is a music producer (his studio gives the film its title) who worked with the likes of Meek Mill, but delivers newspapers on the side.
His wife, Christine’a, works in a shelter and is the family’s resident pillar of strength. Their daughter, PJ, is vibrant and filled with potential while Christine’a’s son, William, from a previous marriage, is contending with a newborn son and a cancer diagnosis. They’re fascinating subjects to say the least and director Jonathan Olshefski couldn’t have made them more interesting if he’d written them.
That said, Olshefski’s touch can be too light when it comes to leading the audience through their story. Whereas Linklater very clearly delineated each year via costume, setting and pop culture references, Olshefski gives very few markers and the audience is left to struggle to understand where in time we are at any given moment. For instance, when the film starts, it moves so quickly through the 2008 election and Barack Obama’s first year in office, that it can be a little jarring. Still, even if we don’t always know the logistics, we understand the mood.
When we first meet the Raineys, everything is hopeful. Obama has just been elected and Christopher and Christine’a have just married after being together for over a decade. Even the police in the Rainey’s neighborhood are friendly. By contrast, by the time the film ends, Trump is president and Christine’a has to film Chris being pulled over by a cop in case something goes wrong. The whole of America’s political landscape can be read in the changes and it’s uncanny how reflective of the period the Raineys are.
Perhaps the two most striking instances, though, center around PJ. When Olshefski shows the family watching the reaction to the Sandy Hook shooting, it seems like just another way to establish where we are in history—and then PJ loses her left eye to a stray bullet. It’s a shocking and deeply upsetting way to make the gun control debate feel personal and the fallout dominates the rest of the film.
Though PJ eventually rediscovers the sassiness that made her such an engaging documentary subject, it’s tempered by self-consciousness and the knowledge that her life is forever changed. While PJ is barely out of childhood when the accident happens, she seems to understand the fundamental shift better than the adults seem to think. She knows this is about more than just not playing basketball as well or her looks.
She brings that same self-awareness to her gender expression and sexuality. Most documentarians would probably have to pry such personal information from their subjects (or not ask at all), but because Olshefski has been with the Raineys for nearly a decade by that point, PJ doesn’t hesitate to say that she’s probably gay. Considering the state of the world, there’s something bracingly wonderful in how easily PJ makes the confession. There’s seemingly no self-consciousness or worry, so much so that she rather hilariously states that her whole generation seems gay.
Her parents, however, are more concerned. An uncharitable person could criticize the Raineys for the way Christine’a suggests that things might be different if Chris hadn’t let PJ be such a tomboy. However, to do so would be to ignore that even if the Raineys’ views of their daughter’s sexuality are outdated, they essentially accept who she is. Whatever reservations they hold privately, they don’t seem to express them to PJ outside of getting her all femme’d up for her graduation photos. Instead, their actions spring from their love and, ultimately, their empathy for who their daughter is.
Indeed, as Christine’a herself explained after the screening I attended, she hopes that those who watch the film are moved to be more empathetic. And while humanity–let alone empathy–can feel hard to find these days, watching the Raineys endure, its easy to believe again.
Rating: 7.5/10
Quest opens today in NYC, is already playing in Philly and hits theaters in Los Angeles on 12/15.
