Fruitvale Station

It was the scene in which Grant visits the grocery store that first made me cry. Divorced of context, there’s not much meaning to it—Grant is overly helpful to a customer and overly forceful with his former boss in trying to get his job back. WE know that this will be the last time Grant visits this store, though. “I hear guns outside,” his daughter later tells him, and Michael B. Jordan, as Grant, glows and assures, “Baby, I’ll be fine.” “Fruitvale Station” packs a lot into its 85 minutes, and all of them prompt some degree of reflection.

9