Welcome to another edition of Movie Review Monday!

This week's film is the 2014 film, Dear White People, written and directed by Justin Simien.

The story of the movie takes a comedic yet poignant look at an ensemble of college students dealing with privilege, race, and identity. It takes place at the fictional Ivy League institution, Winchester University, and builds toward a black face party that mimics recent real world events.

This is a great film for several reasons. It address very real and important concerns, and it does it in a palatable, fun way that doesn't take away from the relevance and takeaways. It delves into the deep identity issues that can be experienced by college students, especially students of color (mainly black students). There is so much pressure coming from different sides, saying who we should or shouldn't be and how we are supposed to act. This is even more severe for black students, since they're in environments that are typically built for their white counterparts, and they don't feel as heard, respected, or supported. The types of discussions that happen in the movie are ones that I feel like I have seen pretty much verbatim.

I think especially for folks who are college students, or work with college students, this can be a very important and necessary viewing. You can better understand your peers or the students you serve respectively. On top of that, it is at the very least an engaging film about coming of age and figuring who we want to be. I'll also give some kudos to the ensemble cast of this film. Everyone delivers in their roles and all of the characters interact in neat ways.

You can check out Dear White People streaming right now on Hulu and Amazon Prime Instant Video.

Thanks for stopping by!