Rustin (2023) is the story of the conception and execution of the 1963 March on Washington. It features many historical figures as characters, including Martin Luthor King, Jr. (Aml Ameen), Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock), and Adam Clayton Powell (Jeffrey Wright) – but most predominantly, Bayard Rustin (Colman Domingo), the man who succeeded in pushing the idea of the march to achieving every bit of potential it had.

It’s a rare thing to call a performance transformative, but Colman Domingo’s turn as Rustin is nothing short of it. In both body and voice, Domingo is so utterly different from any other role I’ve seen him in that it took me a moment to adjust. The voice he uses pitches his typical timbre upwards, but it’s carefully and consciously not a gay stereotype; rather, it’s a significant departure from his norm in a way that allows him to be seen as a different person entirely. While Domingo’s performance is absolutely deserving of the Academy Award nomination, there is a reason that it is the only recognition this film got. Most of the other performances are unconvincing at best and melodramatic at worst, and the screenplay itself cannot decide if it wants to tell the story of the March on Washington or the drama surrounding Rustin’s personal life as a gay Black man in the 1960’s United States. There are some great dramatic sequences of personal strife, but they are then railroaded by montages of march preparation; on the other side of the coin, there are fascinating boardroom scenes of political conversation, but they are quickly forgotten when we cut to a spat between Rustin and his underdeveloped boy toy, Tom. It’s all over the place, and when you have an unfocused screenplay that balances entirely on hooking you with the next famous historical reference, the unfortunate result is a bit of hazy mess.