Selah and the Spades

 At Haldwell Boarding School there are five factions. Each faction plays a role within the school, for example the Prefect faction makes sure the teachers aren’t aware of the students’ partying. The main faction are the Spades, led by Selah (a superb Lovie Simone), and their main role is to supply everyone with the fun stuff (drugs and alcohol). Selah is in her final year and is looking for a successor to lead the Spades. The search is a tough one, but when Paloma (Celeste O'Connor) joins the school, Selah strikes up a friendship thinking she has found her successor. 

Director Tayarisha Poe described Selah and the Spades as Clueless meets The Godfather. It’s an inviting prospect to combine an Oscar winning epic with an endearing cult favourite. Two films from two genres that couldn’t be more different from each other. Strangely, however, it seems to work with the five factions (acting like the five families) attempting to install peace and keep to their own patch but with one faction head unwilling to let her power wavier and even looking to build it.

The film is mainly focused on Selah (Lovie Simone) as she approaches a crossroad in her life where she is under big pressure to make important decisions on her future. Her overbearing mother wants Selah to attend Redwood, a prestigious school, but Selah is concerned that her position and standing at Haldwell Boarding School is unlikely to follow her. Under great pressure to succeed (Selah’s mother is unimpressed about the 93/100 test result), Poe’s use of closeups allows us to understand Selah’s emotional experiences and help the film become an intimate portrayal of black youth.

Interestingly, it’s revealed in a powerful conversation with Paloma that Selah is asexual. It’s a shame that Poe doesn’t go into great detail about this but it’s a rarity in film and especially a rarity in films about the high-school experience. However, from the way the story is told, its combination of two different films, and the way the film it is shot, Selah and the Spades is a film with a unique vision. Tayarisha Poe wanted to stay away from the often-trodden ground of high school, teenage romance and instead focuses on friendships and the power struggle within those friendships.

Selah is an interestingly flawed character and one of her flawed moments is where her jealously tests a friendship when her close friend falls for one of the cheerleaders. This friend, Maxxie, begins to spend less time with Selah and he also starts getting sloppy in his work for the Spades. This begins to put a strain on their friendship as Maxxie has demands from a relationship that Selah is unable or unwilling to understand making her feel lonely and distant. 

Selah and the Spades is a confident and assured debut from Tayarisha Poe whose use of close ups help create an intimate story and ramp up the hallucinogenic affects from the use of colour. The other characters feel a little underdeveloped, but this was always Selah story and she makes for a flawed if empathic character.