FILM / Zora's Super Short Show / Late Expectations / Zora Satchell
Coming out is never an easy experience. Even in the best-case scenario, it is incredibly nerve-wracking. You have to weigh the expectations of others and decide if you’re ready to live in your truth in the face of homophobia. For India, our main character in Late Expectations (written and starring Thais Francis and directed by Laura Arakaki), the stakes could never be higher as she debates coming out to her boyfriend the weekend of her high school graduation.
India is introduced as a character on the cusp of having it all. She is a beautiful young Black woman who has a loving boyfriend and a seemingly supportive best friend. But there is more going on beneath the surface. It is quickly revealed that India is caught in a love triangle between her boyfriend, Nate, and her best friend, Rose, who is pressuring her to come out to and break up with Nate. When she talks about her graduation with her mother, she seems avoidant and quiet, more frustrated with her mom for pushing for marriage between her and her boyfriend than anything else. India seems to be reluctant to express any kind of excitement or desire for her future. Despite being the main character, she doesn’t speak a whole lot or make any real decisions for herself.
In her first scene alone with Rose, much like her previous scene with her mother, she is quiet, avoidant, and anxious. As Rose enters her room, we see her anxiously gaze at what we assume is an acceptance letter. Rose states, “I know you’re not anxious about college. You have a full ride to Brown, plus you have me.” This piece of dialogue prompted a host of questions for me. Does she want to go to Brown or is this a family expectation? A full-ride suggests that India is academically ambitious, but she has not expressed any kind of excitement, nor has her mom, who seems more excited about her relationship with Nate. The rest of the scene focuses on Rose’s desire for India to choose her as she pressures India to come out to Nate and break up. There is no kind of characterization of India outside of anxiety and reluctance. We can assume she is anxious about school, but the reasons are unclear since we know she has no financial concerns due to her scholarship.
In her next scene with Nate, she flirts with the idea of them breaking up by asking “What if things were different for us” but Nate brushes her suggestion off as her being nervous about them going to different colleges. He is confident that it won’t be an issue for them, seeing as they have been together for four years and have gone to separate high schools the entire time. Still, she doesn’t seem enthused but she assures him everything is fine when he asks if she is okay before attempting to leave to meet up with Rose. He doesn’t want her to leave and gives her an ultimatum after she insists that she cannot just blow off her friend. “Who is more important?” he asks. I found myself frustrated because again the scene is driven not by India’s (the protagonist’s) decisions but rather by the desires of her boyfriend Nate. I also found myself confused by India’s motivations. Was she appeasing Nate because she is scared to come out, or was she choosing him because she is more in love with him than Rose believes?
When she returns home she must confront Rose, who is livid after being stood up by India. She demands to know if India has followed through with breaking up with Nate, only for India to run off to puke in the bathroom. This is the first hint we get that something else may be going on with India outside of this love triangle. To distract Rose from her questions, she initiates a make-out session, which is then interrupted by Nate. Hurt that she is once again being blown off for Nate, Rose attempts to expose their secret relationship. Before she can, and just as her mother walks into the room, India drops the bomb that she is pregnant. That’s where the short ends.
While I think the short does a good job of building tension between Rose, India, and Nate, I was incredibly frustrated by the pregnancy reveal and the cliffhanger ending. As an audience member, I found it hard to empathize with India because I knew nothing about her. I could understand her hesitancy to come out. My own coming out was intensely scary for me. While I wasn’t caught between two people, I had found someone I had fallen in love with and wanted to be with. Being with her for me meant that I needed to come out to my family so that she wouldn’t feel like a secret. Things turned out alright but because of my own experience, I felt myself empathizing more with Rose’s hurt and frustration. While I would never out my partner, I could feel her hurt around being kept a secret. India, however, felt incredibly underdeveloped as a character. Was she with Nate because of her internalized homophobia and fear of being out with a baby? Why had she not brought her pregnancy up with her mother, given the fact that she is supposed to be going to Brown in the fall? A baby could seriously disrupt her plans for her education, and yet she doesn’t voice any concerns about that.
The pregnancy felt like it should have been revealed earlier, especially since it could have done a lot of work to actually characterize India and give a reason behind her obvious anxiety and reluctance. Prior to the reveal, her indecision just made her seem cowardly and selfish, and since she is supposed to be the protagonist, knowing what dilemma she was struggling with earlier would have made her more sympathetic to the audience. I wanted to root for India and empathize with her coming to grips with her sexuality, but beyond the love triangle, I had no clue who she was. Throughout the whole story, she has no agency; she flips back and forth between the desires of her two partners, never really expressing what she truly wants. We have no idea how she feels about her queerness beyond shame or what her relationship to homophobia is.
Her first real decision to reveal her pregnancy is motivated by her desire to prevent Rose from exposing their secret relationship. The cliffhanger doesn’t work because it’s more about how other people will react to her pregnancy than her own reaction to it, which is also unclear. We do not know if she wants to keep the baby or not, nor are we guided in any way to care about how it may impact her future since we have no idea if she actually wants to go to college. This is supposed to be an LGBT short, but we have no idea how she feels about her own identity as a queer woman. We needed more conversations where her queer identity is clearly defined and she is more fleshed out as a character. Overall, I give this 2019 short, distributed by Issa Rae Presents Short Film Sundays, a C +, because it leaves a lot to be desired both in character development and in storytelling.
