'Rustin' review: Colman Domingo gives powerful peformance in this important work of historical storytelling

WHAT IT'S ABOUT The story of Bayard Rustin, the civil rights activist who played a major role in organizing the 1963 March on Washington, comes to the screen thanks to a team of heavy hitters.

It starts with the executive producers, none other than Barack and Michelle Obama and their Higher Ground production company. It extends to the director, the Tony-winning theater icon George C. Wolfe ("Angels in America").

Then there's the cast: the great Colman Domingo plays Rustin. Supporting actors include Chris Rock as NAACP head Roy Wilkins, stage great Audra McDonald as civil rights activist Ella Baker and Jeffrey Wright playing Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of Harlem.

The story follows Rustin as he works aggressively behind the scenes on the logistics for that monumental moment, all on a compressed time frame of a matter of weeks. He also develops and carries out a plan to attract the amount of interest and buy-in from communities across the country that ultimately led to some 250,000 attendees on the National Mall on that famous August day.

The screenplay, from Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black, also looks inward. Rustin grapples with how to galvanize this effort as one of its public faces, while also living as an openly gay Black man at a time where that could not be done without great personal danger, and where his past could be used against him by the forces conspiring to hamper the march.

MY SAY It takes some time to settle into the rhythms of "Rustin," pitched at a rapid pace, with a jazz-heavy score by Branford Marsalis and scenes that would not feel drastically different were they staged in a theater.

But once it becomes possible to meet Wolfe there, something special emerges: the portrayal of a man compelled to achieve something as remarkable as it is unlikely, while being seized with the right amount of personal conviction to see it through.

It shows the hard work that went into organizing this transformative moment through scenes packed with activity. 

Rustin must lobby decision-making skeptics, forever defending the importance of his vision and his ability to see it through. He must face off with an unfriendly police chief on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He has to organize and inspire the hastily assembled team dispatched to arrange a program, raise funds, and get the buy-in needed. He must be clear-eyed and painstaking.

But the power of Domingo's performance lies in the self-doubt, the trauma that lingers from past horrors, the burden of being a man with so much love to give to the cause that he has little available for his life away from the front lines. The actor projects steadfast confidence without neglecting the tragic reality of how hard it must have been to be Rustin, in many ways, even at his highest moments.

That interplay between Rustin's public-facing and private selves takes the movie out of conventional docudrama territory and moves toward something more substantial: the story of what being a changemaker really means.

BOTTOM LINE It's an important work of historical storytelling that functions just as well as a compelling character study.