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To damn by faint praise:Shirleyis a perfectly serviceable film.
It doesnt reinterpret Chisholm for the modern public consciousness.
It doesnt really serve as a character study, offering little genuine insight into the politician as a person.
Broadly speaking,Shirleyconforms to the template.
Ridleys script hits the major beats around Chisholms run.
Her campaign faced the same challenges that continue to plague Black women in all political arenas.
The Black political Establishment, then overwhelmingly male, ultimately treated Chisholm as a negligible concern.
Most of her supporting cast are doing decent work as well.
(Though Hedges should probably consider diversifying out of playing shy, awkward men.)
His inclusion feels not only strange, but underbaked.
But those qualities could also produce liabilities.
To its credit,Shirleydoes gesture to these frictions, though not in any substantial way.
Those aspects, too, suffer from a lack of serious exploration.
Politics, of course, is never as simple as that.
